Right Here Waiting
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: By day, a troubled young musician is haunted by the ghosts of his past. By night, he dreams of the girl he once called his first love. Hwoarang x Julia.
1. Look over here

**And voila! Here it is. Kinda dark, kinda angsty, hopefully not too depressing. Since my other fic, _To Breathe Again_, was deleted, here is my latest multi-chaptered outing set to LiveJournal's 30 kisses challenge. Each chapter is set to a prompt. These chapters are _not_ oneshots. They form part of the story. Shout out to everyone who reviewed and faved _TBA_! That was much appreciated :D, thank you very much! And a very special thanks to the bands Nirvana and Staind whose music inspired this fic (RIP, Kurt. Your godly voice still haunts me.).**

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own Tekken or any of its characters. I do own this plot and the OCs that will appear. It may come as a surprise but I _do _own the lyrics in this chapter (I made them up so that those possessing more musical talent than I do can put them into melodies of their own). They probably suck but it fits in with FF rules and regulations.**

* * *

**#1. Look over here**

Even as he recalled, the incident appeared in bits and pieces. Chopped and scattered...

He'd had a beer before the show so that he'd be pumped up. A temporary, fake high but it had to do. Perhaps it was more than one beer. More than two or three. Could it have been four? Or five? That didn't matter. What did matter was that he'd been drunk and tired. His bandmates, Kim and Han, had felt the same way too. Except that they hadn't been as drunk and tired as he was.

Had he been tired because he was exhausted from his energetic antics onstage?

Or was he just tired of it all?

His head had ached too much for him to surrender to dreams. Perhaps that had been a good thing. His dreams were dreamless. Instead of offering him an escape from reality, they brought him back to the place where he'd tried to bury the past. Dreams were supposed to reflect your greatest hopes and desires. In his slumber, the dirt and blood would cake on his palms and face. The scent would fill his nostrils and his hidden demons slipped off their chains and cuffs.

Playtime.

They'd grin with glee as he choked and spluttered through the layers of darkness. One of them would trail a long, razer-sharp talon up his neck so that the skin split and the scarlet, moist human blood trickled down his throat and chest. It called itself 'Pain'. The other would run its boney fingers through his scarlet locks and caress the silken strands, whispering stories of hope and love that never could have been. This one was entitled 'Sorrow'.

His two biggest fans. Chanting his name over and over until he'd beg them to stop.

_Hwoarang... Hwoarang... Hwoarang..._

His childhood friends. Now his lifelong companions.

_When everything is gone, we shall be all you have left._

They'd taken away his zest for life. They'd gifted him the scars lining his heart.

His attempts to rid himself of them were many and varied. Purging by means of pen and ink or the letters on a keyboard. His troubles manifested in lyric upon lyric, song upon song, performance after performance. The crowds lapped it all up, pleading for more. As benevolent an artiste as he was, he succumbed to their call. The larger the masses, the deeper he dug himself into. Unknowingly, the ones who claimed to adore him the most became the ones who ripped open his raw wounds making him hemorrhage further.

The alcohol was the next step. It tasted awful but it was an anesthetic. Medication was never very pleasant. He'd drink until he drowned. Passing out and falling into the same trap over and over again. There he lay, on the threshold of his grinning obsessors, delighted at finding him in so vulnerable a state.

Unspeakable were the punishments inflicted on his sanity.

The drugs were the last resort. The smoke was hazy and the sensations were like electricity, pulsing and vibrating. The chemicals were an itch, crawling beneath his pale skin. He'd always been a good-looking boy. Those light brown eyes, the loose copper locks, and the roguish smile were a magnet for many fun-loving, giggly females. And even now, he still was. Even as his reflection stared back at him, its gaze hollow and its smile absent.

He was such an attractive boy on the external part. And they loved him for it.

The idea had been formed in his mind on that night, after the show. He kept it to himself and guarded it carefully.

If no one knew, no one could stop him.

He did recall that it was dark because there was no moon in that night sky. No comforting effervescent glow to soothe his disturbed mind. He gathered what he needed in his cold, clammy hands, singing softly to himself to take his mind off the task at hand.

"_Gone, gone, where has my light gone?"_

The bed-sheet felt heavy in his hands. The smooth cotton chafed at the rough skin of his palms.

"_It's hidden, far away behind the night cloud."_

A bout of vertigo made the distance between his eyes and the ground beneath the chair he was perched on a dizzying sight. Still, he persevered, looping one end of the sheet over the ceiling-fan.

"_It's gone forever."_

The third demon had made its appearance. Its head was shrouded but Hwoarang could tell it was smiling. His pain was its pleasure. He watched it writhe and moan in ecstacy as the rest of the cloth found its way around his neck. He looked up into the eyes of 'Loss'.

"_As I bid goodbye..."_

Closing his own brown eyes, he exhaled and kicked the chair away from him.

* * *

The silence awakened him.

He was struck by what he couldn't see.

An endless flash of white light beheld him. With his head bowed low, he picked up an aroma which he'd long ago deemed forgotten.

"Hey..."

And heard a voice that he'd always remembered.

"Look over here."

He turned towards it's direction, hopeful yet fearful.

"It's me."

The light was too bright to see her face but he knew. He could recognize her anywhere. The sweet, low notes of her voice made him piece together the shards of a time when he could smile, laugh, and joke without the fear of being shot down by fate for his sins. The pictures were drawn and painted before his very eyes.

He saw it. But he dared not believe it.

Joy felt too good to be true.

She reached out to him and he touched her hand. The skin felt so clean and smooth beneath his dirt-encrusted fingers. Pulling him closer, she held his hand in hers and wiped off the black filth. When she bent down and kissed his now clean palm, he couldn't help but cry out at the pain. Not the physical pain of sadness and heartache. It was the surge of mad joy that erupted within him which was so strong that it hurt.

"It's okay. I'm here."

"Thank you."

His head lay on her breast, her arms wrapped around him. The peace he felt now was soon overshadowed by fear. What if this was all just another illusion his wayward mind had created? Peering over her shoulder and letting his fingers caress her long braid, he could hear the voices calling him back to earth. Back to reality. Back to his torment...

"_Hwoarang, come on! Wake up!!"_

"_You've gotta come back, buddy!"_

He paid them no heed.

"I'm so happy that I could get to see you, Hwoarang."

"Me too."

"But you must go now."

He couldn't believe what she'd just told him. His throat went dry and his body shook with fear. His voice cracked with tears as he implored, "Why?"

She released him slightly but still held onto his shoulders gently. "It's what's best for you. You have to go on living."

"No..." He clutched at her hand, trying to delay her departure.

"I'll stay for a little while longer then."

They stood there, motionless, hand-in-hand. All concept of time was forgotten as he struggled to retain every single part of her into his being. Her touch on his skin, her soft smile, her gentle yet fiery spirit, everything. Like trying to collect water in his cupped hands, the memory was dangerously streaming away from his mind.

"Hwoarang?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me about what you've been up to."

"The band's being considered by a record label."

"That's good."

"The fans seem to like us. Kim's an awesome bassist, Han's a percussion genius."

"And you're a talented singer. Don't forget the guitar playing."

"You still remember?"

She laughed softly and his heart broke. "How could I not?"

"After all that - "

"It's over now. Don't worry about me."

It suddenly struck him.

"Why _are_ you here?"

He grasped her hands and met her dark eyes. "What brought you to me?"

She smiled sadly and shook her head slowly.

"I'm not sure. All I knew is that you were in pain." Her eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up again. "You needed help."

"Julia..."

"It's okay. I'm fine not knowing why."

The voices in the background grew louder and stronger. He felt her hand tremble in his.

"It's time for me to leave."

"Don't..."

"Hwoarang..."

"Please." He ached so much that his vision blurred. "I'm not strong enough."

"Yes, you _are._ I know you are."

The traces of her old determination touched him greatly. Drawing her closer, he tightened his grip on her and nuzzled her hair like he used to. He tried to let her familiar scent permeate his body and soul so that he'd never forget. Her inner strength was wonderful. Maybe this was only a dream. But it was a dream worth keeping in spite of everything that had once passed between them.

He closed his eyes and let it sink in.

"You'll be alright. I believe in you, Hwoarang."

The last thing he remembered was the lightest of butterfly kisses on his forehead...

* * *

The bland walls of the hospital room were a disturbing sight. They aroused many unpleasant memories within him.

Surrounded by a group of relieved friends, all Hwoarang could do was shut his eyes once more and sigh.

It seemed that his personal battle within himself had only just begun.


	2. Letter

**Just because I don't own Tekken doesn't mean I can't claim OCs as my own. I don't own the nursery-rhyme alluded to in this chapter.**

**Yes, I did say 'nursery-rhyme'. And yes, I am fully aware that 'Sky Rush' is a horrible name for a band.**

* * *

**#2 Letter**

It seemed like only two days since the suicide attempt.

Come to think of it, it _was _onlytwo days...

There was nothing much that irked J. He wasn't the type to feel faint at the sight of blood at an accident scene nor was he the type that actually felt any type of disgust at what society called its 'dregs' and 'scum'. Nope, none of the overwrought histrionics of drama for him. J was calm, J was cool, J was unruffled. Truth be told, it was those same qualities that definitely irked others. He didn't much care. He let it slide off like water over lamina and took a puff from what his few dear friends affectionately referred to as 'cancer sticks'. Yep, nothing really swayed J much.

The memory of Hwoarang lying unconscious on the hotel-room floor, as white as the sheet coiled round his neck, had almost done the trick though.

Things quickly matched up. The mood swings, the long silences, the mysterious and sudden 'disappearances', the increasingly haunting and disturbed lyrical content...

Damn.

That idiot. He could've just _said _something if he wasn't alright. There had been no need to hang himself like a fuckin'... emo-wannabe or whatever those kids called themselves. And Hwoarang had never been that type. Maybe just a _little _screwed up but not too depressed. Right?

Once again, his friend had managed to take everyone by surprise.

Perhaps he should have noticed the signs. Now that he thought of it, they'd been everywhere.

Ignorance had been bliss and here was the result.

J rapped his knuckles sharply on the door as a matter of custom. The slightest tilt of a red-haired head told him that Hwoarang at least acknowledged his appearance, unwelcome or not. It was a disgustingly sunny day outside and the light seeped in through the clean, transparent window of the hospital room. Of course, J would have drawn those curtains shut himself were it not for the fact that today was Hwoarang's last day here so it was quite pointless to do so.

The lead singer sat perched on the edge of the bed with his arms folded. His crimson locks hung around his face like a veil, his emotions hidden away behind it. A recent amount of weight loss had the effect of making his clothes appear loose and clingy on his already slim frame. A red canvas sports bag lay at his feet, packed and ready to be picked up.

"The car's out front." J stated plainly.

Hwoarang nodded and stood up stiffly, pulling the hood of his dark blue sweatshirt over his head.

J couldn't help but recall an account detailing executioners covering the heads of their victims with black pieces of cloth before dealing them the _coup d'grace._ The blow or strike which would end their miserable lives...

_Here comes the candle to light you to bed._

_And here comes the chopper to chop off your head..._

He forced his macabre imaginations into a deathly silence and motioned Hwoarang to follow. The latter's head was still lowered as he placed his footsteps behind his friend's. Dead man walking...

_Chop, chop, chop._

* * *

There wasn't a cloud in sight. Which was a pity, J thought they could've done with some rain. Rain was always a good reason to stay safe indoors. The air stayed cool and the water washed away the past dirt.

He'd heard about the effects of drugs from many sources. After all, it was pretty much part of the whole rock-star package. It came with the free booze and the fast women. And the fame? That, by itself, was the most dangerous drug. Just one sip left you thirsty for more. A fire that would never be quenched. Your star would plummet just as easily as it had ascended. They say the Devil preyed on the embittered and desperate. Voila, your soul was his to claim.

The jet-black Cadillac ran over a pot-hole causing its two occupants to bounce slightly in their seats. Steadying his hands on the steering-wheel, J turned to his right to check on his brooding passenger.

No doubt about it, Hwoarang was still passably attractive even in such an obviously disheveled state. His skin was pale, almost milky-white color, and his eyes appeared larger and more feverish now that he'd lost a few pounds of weight. J noticed that his arms were still folded as they had been earlier. Neither of them had spoken a word since then.

The sound of silence was deafening. He almost wished that Hwoarang would... snap out of it. Revert back to his normal self, switch on the radio, turn the volume up to full blast, and laugh in his face when he was told to shut up. The old Hwoarang would have probably started a shallow, meaningless, funny conversation about which fans were the craziest, which of the groupies was the most obsessive, and maybe which one of the girlfriends was the kinkiest...

But Hwoarang wasn't shallow. That was only the surface. What lay beneath was the real mystery. And so far, no one had been able to penetrate it. J had assumed that he'd rather prefer it that way. It did add to the sex appeal of his occupation.

So who was the real Hwoarang?

Somehow, J wasn't so sure that he knew anymore. Perhaps, Hwoarang didn't know either...

As he pulled into the parking-lot of the hotel, the red-head seemed to slowly freeze. From his shoulders down to his knees, his body contracted as he sensed an impending storm. It would be best to break the news to him now.

"By the way, Kim and Han wanted a word with you."

Against his will, J began to feel like a traitor. In a matter of minutes, he would be leading his best friend to the guillotine. Sure, they'd both had it rough and should've grown used to it...

But...

Fuck, it would be best to get it over with quickly.

The journey from the car to the hotel-room on the fifth floor was a long and tension-laced one. In the lift, J noticed Hwoarang leaning against the metal inner wall. For the most part, that wall offered him more support than anyone else had over the past few years.

The doors slid open with a tinny 'ping' sound. They stepped onto the plush, mauve carpet and managed to locate the room they'd been summoned to.

The two young men sitting inside looked up expectantly as they entered. Han, the cheerful, slightly eccentric drummer, who had a habit of running his fingers through his platinum blond mohawk when he was nervous. Kim, the quiet, mellow spiky-haired bassist, who rarely let anything get to him. Along with Hwoarang, the trio were 'Sky Rush', a hybrid of nu-metal, punk, and alternative rock, formed out of an unyielding passion for the music as well as the joy it brought them.

At the moment, 'joy' was a horribly over-rated word.

Kim cleared his throat awkwardly. "Hey... how ya doin'?"

Hwoarang stared back expressionless and J scowled inwardly. Stupid question...

"You sure scared the shit outta us when you..." A jerky flick of the wrist substituted for lack of a better word.

"..."

J was getting annoyed. This 'conversation' was heading in only one direction. Nowhere.

"Get to the point, Kim." He spoke up, keeping his irritation in check, whilst pulling out his lighter for a much-needed smoke.

After much pointless stroking of his chin and shifting of his feet, the agitated bassist made another attempt to do so.

"I... we kinda - "

With every unnecessary moment of hesitation, Hwoarang appeared to shrink visibly. The damn cigarette between J's fingers adamantly refused to be lit up.

"The thing is that your actions have us pretty damn worried about the repercussions. For your health and safety as well as for us. I mean... that night? That was the end of the extreme. I don't intend to preach but - "

J immediately bit the bullet. "So, what you're saying is - "

"J, let me finish - "

"You want him to - "

"I quit."

The cigarette lighter slipped out of J's grasp and hit the floor with a muffled 'thump'. Han jumped up to his feet exclaiming. Kim just stood, rooted to the spot, and gaped. Oblivious to the tremor that his first two spoken words of the day had created, Hwoarang turned abruptly on his heel and headed towards the door.

"Wait!"

The same door was immediately flung open, allowing him to escape from the confrontation which would have ensued. One of the lifts had remained open from someone else's departure. Hwoarang rushed in and hit the button for the ground-floor. The doors closed and his heart began to pound within his chest.

He was enraged. Enraged that he'd gone through with this whole ruse as well as at his own pitiful state.

As soon as the doors opened again, he stormed out. He ran out through the lobby, past the reception, and into the parking-lot. The summer heat engulfed him in a haze of brightness and the sweat prickled on his back. Realizing that he had nowhere to go as well as no transport of his own, he swore out loudly and yelled in pain.

His hoarse voice cut through the stifling heat like a blood-stained blade.

It fuckin' hurt...

The weight was too much for him to bear at the moment. So, he let his weary body slump slowly to the asphalt until he crouched.

Maybe they were right. What band could possibly want a recovering alcoholic and drug user who was also kinda screwed up in the psychological department as a lead man? The truth tasted bitter on his tongue and he bit down hard on his bottom lip to stop the trembling. He guessed that he must have looked like an escaped asylum inmate but he couldn't have cared less than if a meteor had struck him.

The truth fuckin' hurt.

"Hwoarang..."

He felt a familiar hand on his shoulder but didn't bother to look up.

"It's not what you think, man."

"Fuck off, Han." he growled.

"We don't want you to quit."

"I said - "

"Just listen! Please."

"He's right, ya know." J's low voice materialized. The man had been proven wrong.

"Yeah." It was Kim. "We know the band's your life and we don't want to rob you of that."

Hwoarang finally deigned to glance sideways. Albeit, quite warily.

"Um, I know you don't really like this sentimental crap and stuff but... we just wanna help."

And suddenly, he was speechless. Whether it was because he was shocked or touched, he wasn't so sure. But suddenly, the sunlight didn't seem so harsh and the load wasn't so heavy. The wounds were still bleeding but...

He felt a bit, just a bit, better. At least, for now. A passing drizzle in the endless blue, blue sky...

"Thanks."

Kim let a rare grin grace his face. "S'alright."

"As long as it's of any use." J muttered with a pessimistic air.

"Of course it's gotta be of _some_ use." Han chuckled as he wrapped one arm around a slightly overwhelmed Hwoarang. "Hey guys, how about a group hug?"

"Guys don't hug, Han."

"Aw, come on, J! Stop being so wooden and poker-faced and just - " J held the other man at a distance with an outstretched arm before he could be coerced into an embarrassing show of PDA.

Hwoarang wasn't sure if he could summon up enough contentment to actually smile with Kim at the comical sight. However, he could at least retain a faint impression of one...

* * *

Overall, Hwoarang mused, his day should have seemed okay. He was clean and sober for the first time in weeks which meant that the monsters were at rest.

They'd had a talk afterwards. The words of comfort had been sincere and the smiles had been genuine.

He should have felt happy.

Why wasn't he happy?

It was a question which had hung over him on and off for the past eleven years of his life. Perhaps he should have let it all out at that little impromptu 'meeting' of theirs. In any case, he'd never excelled at making his feelings known to those he actually cared about. He didn't even know what he felt about whom anymore. His thoughts and emotions were strands of thread which were all entangled in one huge knot.

Words were failing him. The rust was gathering...

The luminescence of the laptop screen in front of him cast as eerie glow over his face. No mail for him this evening. Too bad, he would have liked a witty little anecdote about someone's day or a forwarded corny joke or two to take his mind off things.

His main inbox was empty. Hmph, might as well check the spam.

His eyes widened in surprise and then closed in guilt.

_Hi, Hwoarang!_

_Belated Birthday wishes! Hope your tour's going well, it sure sounds like fun. Wish I was there :(. Just typed this out to wish you well and best of luck. You must be real busy so I'll keep this one short and sweet (it's something I really suck at, I know lol). I'm kinda pressed for time here too what with that major project that's due and all. I promise I'll send something longer (and more interesting) next time._

_Have fun!_

_Jules :)._

The e-mail had been received last month. Not that he would have had the leisure to read it. Still, Julia had kept her part of the promise. She honestly attempted to keep in touch, busy as she might be. He, on the other hand,...

Sometimes, he wondered why they'd ever started a relationship in the first place. Water and wine, day and night, the good girl and the bad boy, it never should have mixed. He'd had a lot of good times with her, he couldn't deny that. Opposites were said to attract.

However, there was such a thing as being 'too different'.

He'd loved her. She'd loved him.

_Loved._

Past tense.

Yet, he still retained vestiges of that affair, as much he'd tried to leave her behind with his past. Like a draft, the memories would breeze in and catch him unawares. A lonely bird in tree, the red, orange, and golden leaves in autumn, the melancholy voice of the wind,... yes, he did think of her. And a small, secret part of his jaded heart hoped that she thought of him too. After all, it was almost a year and a half since they'd last spoken in person.

No matter how hard you try, you never really forget your first love. That dream had made him realize that...

Have fun, eh? When they'd dated, she would usually sign off with 'Love..' or 'XOXO'. Kiss hug kiss hug.

Heh, he wouldn't mind some of the latter now.

_Hey Jules!_

_Thanks for the message! Sorry I took so long to reply. Tour's going great :D. Hope you're doing fine. I'm glad I never went to college, too bad for you XD. LOL, j/k!_

_Talk to you later,_

_Hwoarang._

Hell yeah, he was a pretty good actor. As long as everyone thought he was doing fine and 'getting better', he'd prevent any unnecessary fretting. Because if there was one thing Hwoarang hated, it was knowing someone was wasting their time worrying over a guy like him.

He just wasn't worth the trouble.

* * *

**Not very good but reviews are greatly appreciated. If not, well at least some Xs and Os for poor emoish Hwoarang please :D.**


	3. Jolt!

**I guess most of you have been wondering about Julia's current, uh, 'status'. Well, may I remind you that it _was _a month since she'd sent that e-mail to Hwoarang. And a lot could have happened in a month (shifty eyes)...**

**Disclaimer:**** Don't own Tekken, Namco does. If I did, Ling Xiaoyu would have died a very slow and painful... Never mind. I don't own the songs mentioned in this chapter either. Those belong to their respective artists.**

* * *

**#3 Jolt!**

2 years ago

There were probably much worse things than to feel pissed off during the peak of summer but right now, nothing else exasperated or tired her out more than the pent-up rage that she needed to vent on a certain red-haired Korean. Being stood up was considered rude enough but being stood up for an opening at some seedy night-club crawling with drunk scumbags and whores? Unbelievable.

This was _it_. No more nice, sweet Julia Chang who always got walked on. It was high time that she finally stood up for herself without anyone else stepping on her own feet. Hwoarang was _so_ in for a rude awakening...

The heat of the afternoon added to her frustrations. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she barged through the garage entrance unannounced.

"Hwoarang?"

A muffled 'What?!' floated up from behind a silver motorbike partially obscuring a mop of carmine hair. The nonchalance in the speaker's voice only infuriated her further.

"Hwoarang!"

She literally stomped over to where she knew he was hidden exclaiming, "About last night - "

"Huh?"

The Korean arose, stretching lazily with a soiled rag in hand, as he uttered the monosyllable. His legs were sheathed in a pair of tight, black denim jeans and his torso lay exposed in the absence of a shirt. In the pale light of the sun seeping through the entrance, the toned muscles of his arms and abdomen glistened like amber. Hair loose and eyes smoldering, he glanced quizzically at her now breathless form. His gaze stunned her into an abrupt and flustered state of speechlessness.

_Damn._

_Damn, damn, damn!_

"Well?" he asked, smirking slyly.

A spring of carnal desire had sprung up from deep inside her and it now refused to subside. It overflowed into her already heated psyche, muddling her brain and freezing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. A sentence of vague and distorted syntax escaped her unknowingly. Suddenly, he was standing in front of her, shimmering and glimmering like an oasis mirage. He leaned forward and she felt his warm breath on her lips.

"Something you wanted to tell me? Julia?"

The way he paused before saying her name... argh. The heat was melting her into a pool of liquid goo. She despised herself for succumbing so easily to his animal charms. Now that she thought about it, she realized she shouldn't have brushed off her mother's admonitions about dating guys like him. More trouble than they were worth. Before she could fully grasp the connection between those two entirely different scenarios, the sensation of moist lips against hers blinded her vision entirely.

The quickened thumping of her heart against her rib-cage, the rise in her body temperature, and the series of jolts attacking her spine were all forgotten as she lead herself to within temptation.

For the life of her, she couldn't even remember what she'd been so angry about.

* * *

It was a hotel-room just like any other. The same type of bed with the same bland covers, the same neutral carpeting, the same sense of temporary order amongst chaos. It was nothing special.

Except that it was _his _bags on the carpet on which _his _feet had tread. This was the bed in which _he _had tossed and turned about on the night before _he'd_ used one of these very sheets to make an attempt on _his _own life.

And perhaps if she'd run her fingers over these seemingly lifeless objects, she'd feel his touch just like they had over the past few days. Psychometry was what the 'experts' had termed it. And hadn't she been dubbed 'psychic' by many albeit rather jokingly at that? If she was as good as deciphering the hidden truth behind every action as they'd made her out to be then this should be an easy thing to do.

The remnants of his previous bearings were faint and unsatisfying. Naturally, it saddened her a great deal when she'd had so much faith in that archaic mystic art.

She sighed. A faint little breath of a sound.

Once more, her unyielding belief in such things had let her down. She would have cried had it been of any use. Reality reared its ugly head and she was made to see the hopelessness of her attempts to feel alive again. Nothing could ever replace the taste of his lips against her tongue or the heat of his skin on hers. The rhythmic melody of running water from the opposite side of the bathroom door made her heart ache more.

She leaned against the wood and listened to the sounds of the water ascending from the shower-head. If she strained a little more, she could hear him sighing in resignation to himself. What she wouldn't give to call out to him now at this very moment and tell him that it would be alright. Because he wasn't as alone he thought.

If only she could stroke his hair whilst he slept like she used to. If only she could talk to him again about everything under the sky and above it. If only she could finally tell him one more thing...

If only, if only. There were a lot of 'if onlys'.

With a heavy heart, she let herself slide down against the smooth surface of the polished wood. She leaned it further so that she'd be able to absorb every tiny vibration created by every tiny movement he made and willed herself to remain as silent and still as a reed in a river so that she would hear his deep breathing. Until the next time, this would have to do for now.

_Goodnight, Hwoarang._

* * *

The hot, steaming water was a treat for his sore and travel-weary muscles as well as acting as a sort of spiritual comfort. Perhaps, the latter was true to a lesser extent but at least it was considerably safer than submersing oneself in a hazy world of illusion induced by alcohol and drugs.

But like those two vices, it didn't really help one forget.

Inhaling and exhaling, he pushed the nightmares aside and tried to bring back the long lost memories of better times. Training with Baek, jammin' with the band, laughing with the friends, teasing Julia to no end. Those had been good times. They'd been lost for an eternity beneath a sea of bitterness, abuse, and lies. It had been no use trying to escape his past. It always returned to haunt him.

He'd been tainted by hate. Everything he touched would be cursed. He'd learnt that too soon. It was best to hide away that darkness behind a veneer of false bravado, cocky smiles, and witty jokes. You couldn't fool everyone though.

She'd seen right through his act. That had been the reason why he wouldn't let her in closer. She might have drowned and it would have killed him inside. Unlike the others, she'd been too precious for his filth. She belonged with another more befitting of her love. That was why he'd told her to fly away and never look back...

Goodbyes were always the hardest thing to do.

He still felt it, no doubt about that. But she was better off without him, no matter what she'd said.

Splinters of pain pricked at his head as he ran his fingers through his locks. It multiplied further until he felt it.

He'd been about five at the time. His mother had just finished cleaning the rest of the house, clothes had been folded and put into their respective drawers, and dinner lay warm on the kitchen table. The smells were homely and inviting, just like a perfect household should be.

But perfect was just a word.

The second they heard the tires screeching out on the drive-way and as soon as his father stomped inside, that 'perfect' dream ended. He and his mother would have to walk through a metaphorical mine-field until they either reached the end safe and sound or, as what happened most often, step on a hidden, obscure land-mine and let it explode. It was frightening how the smallest, most insignificant thing could start a one-sided war. On that night, it was a pair of socks.

The seemingly harmless pair of brown cotton socks had been placed at the wrong end of the drawer.

His father had exploded on impact, hunted his wife down, and hurled abuse after abuse on her quaking figure. The accusation culminated in the theory that she couldn't concentrate on her 'duties' as a wife and mother due to the fact that she must be secretly 'whoring herself' to all the young men in the neighborhood. And while Hwoarang had no idea what this exchange fully meant, he knew it wasn't true. He trusted his childish intuition.

The slap had rung out loud and clear in his ears. His mother had shrieked as she fell to the floor, clutching her bruising cheek. His father had sped over to where she lay and aimed a series of heavy-footed kicks at her stomach, yelling at her to shut up as she screamed for mercy.

As the boy had watched all this unfold before his very eyes, he'd cried out in fear for her. His action governed by the need to protect the woman who had borne him into this world five years ago, he latched onto her tormentor's arm. She protested fearfully in vain as her son was literally thrown off and slammed into the nearby wall. In a volcanic fit of rage, her husband grabbed a ceramic plate off a side-table and smashed it down onto his barely conscious son's head...

The blood had streamed down like water.

Hwoarang gasped as he opened his eyes. He was suddenly aware of his position at the bottom of the shower, lying on his side in a tangle of limbs. Using the damp wall for support, he pulled himself up until he stood on his own two feet. In the background, he heard a malicious cackle after he turned the shower knob off.

Once he was out, he ran a towel through his dripping hair and body. Glancing at the solemn reflection in the mirror, he winced at the dark circles under his eyes and the bleeding red lines he'd scratched onto his bare arms in a feverish frenzy in the shower.

If anyone had called, he would have heard a ring-tone by now. He kept different ones for different people, depending on which song they reminded him of. 'Stay Away' by Nirvana for J, 'Sugar, we're going down' by Fall Out Boy for Han, and Aerosmith's 'Dream On' for Kim. He was definitely sure he had Muse's 'The Fine Print' for his old friend Steve Fox but he hadn't heard it in a while.

It had been _ages_ since he'd heard Julia's voice.

He shouldn't have been missing it but he couldn't help himself...

As he wrapped the towel around his waist, he remembered the song he'd selected for her. He'd chosen 'Kiss the Rain' by Billie Myers just because she'd once mentioned that she'd loved that song. It had been a long time since he'd heard that too.

_'Hello... Can you hear me?'_

What he wouldn't give to hear it again.

_'Am I getting through to you?'_

What if?

_'Hello... Is it late there?'_

Was it?

_'Is there laughter on the line?'_

A jolt of shocked electricity sparked through his spine when he recognized that familiar tune. Stumbling through the bathroom door, he shuddered as his bare torso was exposed to the chilly room temperature. In a desperate attempt to locate his singing cell-phone, he scampered from one corner of the room to another. Damn phone, never within his reach when someone called. And at a time like this, when it was so important...

_'...Go outside.'_

He finally traced the cell to his discarded backpack on the floor. As he fretfully rummaged through the contents, the song reverberated loudly in his mind.

_'Kiss the rain, whenever you need me. Kiss the rain, whenever I'm gone too long.'_

Hwoarang closed his fingers around the vibrating object and yanked it out, scattering all types of whatnot all around him. He flipped it open and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello? Julia?"

The line went dead.

* * *

**Yeesh, that wasn't very good IMO. The song above is 'Kiss the Rain' by Billie Myers (one of my all-time faves). Anyway, review please.**


	4. Our distance and that person

**I friggin' hate this prompt. No wonder this chapter turned out so confusing.**

**Disclaimer:**** Don't own Tekken.**

* * *

**#4. Our distance and that person**

_3/3_

_Dear diary,_

_How do you know if you truly miss someone? And if that someone truly misses you?_

_I suppose I shouldn't even be thinking about this but today is his birthday. So, I wonder. I sent him an e-mail and I wonder what he'll think when he opens it. Would he remember all those times when we were young and carefree? Would he recall how I used to smile at his outward show of smirks and rowdiness? Does he know that I used to weep in secret over the things he hid from me? Does he know that I still wonder? Wondering if he ever thinks of me..._

_So many questions, so few answers._

_Perhaps it's no use waiting and wondering. But as soon as I sent that mail, I found myself waiting for a reply almost immediately. Silly, lovesick me. A part of me is jaded and cynical beyond my years, another is as naïve and childlike as a newborn baby. I should just laugh and move on. It was a mistake, albeit a beautiful one, but a mistake nonetheless. As they say, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Ugh, I hate that saying. It's like comparing fragile, easily discouraged human beings to spawning salmon in a river. Very unromantic, I must say. The world may be a harsh, dark place to live in but that shouldn't mean we can't dream._

_My mother told me that the greatest tragedy is to dream of things that never were._

_I dream of things that could have been. And my secret heart hopes that one day, reality would bend to my will and grant me my fondest wish. _

_But it's only a dream and I must wake up._

_I'm just as stupid as those heroines in romance novels. Moping around waiting for my 'hero' to come home. And perhaps he will. Heh, only in my dreams. Love is a great and terrible thing, isn't it? _

_Even if we do move on and each of us finds another, nothing could ever erase that memory of first love. That first date, that first kiss, that first time... it may fade until the colors turn sepia and gray like those of an old photograph but it still remains in that subconscious album hidden away in our locked hearts. Only to be remembered when we whip out the keys and take a peek at the hazy memories._

_Behind my nerdy glasses and text-books, I still dare to dream. Careful and cautious as I am, this is the one thing I let myself succumb to. It happens every time I receive that occasional reply or when I hear that certain song on the radio. I smile to myself because, before all the fame and glory, I loved him first. And then I sigh to myself because I was careless enough to let what we had fall apart._

_It's only when I close my eyes that I can replay those carefree days of joy._

_When I open them, I am confronted by the distance between us. _

* * *

His rapid footfalls mirrored the thumping of his own heart as the cold sweat beaded on his clammy forehead. He could already feel its breath on the back of his neck, yearning for a taste of his downfall. The sharp claw extended to the small of his back and swiped at the skin... he bit down hard on the sting which resulted. It jarred his ears and he tasted blood on his tongue. Where or how it came to be there was beyond his imagination...

_Run, run as fast you can._

And just like that, his courage was shattered to pieces, leaving those red-stained brown eyes to raise their shields of moist defense in desperate protest.

_You can't escape us._

The pieces broke apart into smaller shards as they hit the ice. Images reflected in the shards like the ones imprinted at the back of his mind.

_Useless._

He slipped and crashed into a wall in an attempt to break away from them. The world had now begun to sway to and fro, making him lose his footing. Could he call out for help? No, impossible. This was his punishment to endure and endure he must.

_Endure you must!_

The bile was rising up in his throat and taste of blood was soon interspersed with a familiar bitter one. The spinning motion in his head worsened his troubles. He badly wanted to, _needed to_, let it out. Let everything out and be done with it once and for all. Scream, cry, vent, wail, anything to get rid of this. But who would listen? Who was he but invisible? Invisible to his friends and fans, left to struggle to stay afloat alone.

Gravity seized him by the throat.

A sharp jab of bone-cracking pain. At his head, to his abdomen, at his back, one at a time. One step at a time, down the stairs. A cascade of stabs rained down on his body.

_Do not forget._

_Never forget._

_Don't you dare forget._

He cracked his eyelids open. He'd landed twisted on his side, his face was speckled with wet blood and salty tears, and … and...

He couldn't think.

His eyes fell shut and he lay still. If he was quiet, the pain would pass over him. Schoolyard bullies always harassed their victims until they lay curled up and shivering, pleading them to cease. He would wait until it stopped. Pleading never worked.

A cough mixed with a whimper tore itself out from his throat. He immediately braced himself for another round. They absolutely loved it when he cried out. For now, he would just close his weary eyes shut and let everything rain down on him. The warrior was broken and defeated. He would take it all as it came.

When you died in your sleep, did it mean that you died in real life too? If he did, would he be missed? What lay at the end of the tunnel? Darkness or Light?

He curled up tighter and waited...

Waited...

Waited...

The fresh tears that splashed on his cheek didn't belong to him and the voice that implored sadly to no one wasn't his.

"Why is this happening to you?"

Her smooth hand wiped his face clean but didn't bother to free her own eyes from their despair. That touch burned. He shrunk away from the warmth like he'd done once before for fear that he'd taint it. Heaven had cast him out from her arms many years ago. A sinner like him deserved much worse. She was only a dream, he told himself, such beauty could never be real. He closed his eyes and tried to forget.

"Hwoarang?"

He closed his eyes and pushed her away from his mind.

"Hwoarang?"

"Don't touch me."

His head rested on her lap and he could taste the salty tears which fell from those dark, intense orbs. He remembered them so well. Her paper on which her emotions were etched out, clear and all-knowing. They laughed at his jokes whilst her lips frowned, they wept for the pain she couldn't heal, and they saw what few had ever seen in him. He could search the whole world and still never find eyes like hers.

"You're bleeding - "

"It'll stop soon - "

"No."

She shook her head at his misunderstanding.

"No, not here..." she said as she passed her palm gently over the open cuts lining his skin. "Here."

Her palm covered his heart pumping against his chest mournfully. "The soldier has to try harder."

"The soldier's tired. Very tired."

She tucked an errant strand of red hair behind his ear. "I know..."

"What if he doesn't want to go on?"

"Then his guide will help him."

"...Guide?"

The eyes glowed with the sweetness that only a sad smile could provide. "Her hands are small but they're strong. And they're here, ready and open."

"She doesn't - " He gulped down another spring of remorse. "She doesn't even know him."

"I think she does. "

"Are you sure?"

"I think... she knows him better than he knows himself."

"Clichéd..."

"...But true."

He turned his head to the side so that he could inhale her presence. Note every little detail of her attire, touch her with his eyes.

"Did you try calling me? Last night?"

"Why, yes... I believe I did."

"You didn't answer when I tried calling back."

"Really?... I guess I wasn't home."

"Home. Tell me about home."

"Home is where your heart is."

"Then I must be lost."

The scent of fir-trees and water lingered. Spicy calmness. Hidden, mysterious nymphs in the woods. Stories which she'd sung to him and which he'd scoffed at. That had been foolish. There were many different ways to escape reality. Being the dreamer that she was, she'd created her own inner sanctum of peace. She'd beckoned him to join, a rare thing for her to do. But the wicked do not deserve Eden. If Julia was a desert rose then what was he but the rose's thorn?

"...Thorn."

"A what?"

"Was I not your thorn once?"

"...I don't understand."

"Every rose has its thorns. I must have been one of them."

"I'm anything but a rose. And you've never been a thorn."

"Now you're lying."

"How could you tell?"

"Because... because..."

"The thorn is a part of the rose."

"But the rose needs other things to grow. Light, water, care."

"Ah, but a rose is grown to give rather than to receive."

"How?"

"A rose says more than what words can convey. 'I love you', 'Be mine', 'Forgive me'..."

"Like a melody."

"Exactly."

Love songs were sparse on his repertoire. Those who think they are incapable of deserving love cannot give love. He'd heard that once and had thought that it was frighteningly like him. 'Love' was too overused nowadays. It was as if it was something you could slip in and out of like a jacket or shirt. 'Love' didn't really exist, only its consequences.

Did she believe in 'love'?

Or was it a charade as elaborate as his?

"Don't you ever regret, Julia?"

"We all do at some point. But in the end, there's nothing we can do about it, is there?"

"Sometimes, I wish I could turn back the clocks."

"I know. You've said that in a lot of your work."

"...I can't seem to keep my mind shut."

"Neither can I. You wouldn't believe it."

"And look at us now. Vulnerable as can be."

"Hiding beneath tough outer shells."

A spark of kinship was rekindled.

"You still think you can save the forests?"

"A girl can dream, can she?" she replied with a faint giggle.

"Well... don't stop. You'll do it someday."

"And what about you? What do you dream of?"

Flashes of red and black, smoking guns, the rotting miserable stench of broken childhood. He lowered his eyelids and hid beneath his lashes. "Nothing. I dream of nothing."

"You don't dream, you recall against your will. Do you?"

"You wouldn't be wrong."

"I wish I was."

He sighed into her sorrowful gaze. "If it hurts you, don't do it."

"Don't understand? Don't see? Is that what you're talking about?"

"Yeah. This is mine to bear alone. Not yours."

"It's a heavy load for one pair of shoulders."

"..."

"But..." she tilted his face up to hers. "The soldier can win if he has his comrades by his side."

"He has no comrades. He doesn't want them to get hurt in the crossfire."

"He has her."

"For how long?"

"As long as he needs her."

Her voice still echoed in his head as the first streams of light reached in through the blinds and awoke him gently.

"_As long he needs her."_

* * *

_4/4_

_My dear Julia,_

_I miss you. Simple as that. _

_You were careless enough to leave your diary on your bed where I found it. Nosy creature as I am, I couldn't help but rifle through your entries and wonder at your maturity. Whimsical, funny, angsty, all those things that you truly are yet always hidden from the world. A rare, precious treasure. My treasure._

_You never really forgot your first love, did you? I understand that now. I wasn't fair to you two, wasn't I? After all those times I warned you about seeing him and all those things I called him when he broke your heart. I thought you healed but you didn't. In spite of what I said, you did love him. It takes great courage to fall in love and I admire you for that. It was something I could never do myself._

_Blood ties or not, you'll always be my child. The only love of my life._

_I've never had a way with words like you had but 'I love you' is too insipid to say how I feel. Please... don't leave. I'd be lost without you._

_I miss you. Please come back._

_Your ever-loving mother,_

_Michelle._

* * *

**Did you pay close attention to the dates at the top of the diary entries? ;/**


	5. Hey, you know

**A word of advice… listening to Nirvana and then taking a shower immediately after is one hell of a trippy experience so watch out. This chapter turned out quite trippy and I've ended up with a Kurt Cobain-esque Hwoarang 0_0;. Quite an odd chapter, if I must say so myself.**

**Disclaimer:**** Namco does not think I'm 'sane enough' to borrow their characters. Hmph, them with their fighting animals and resurrected people too… In any case, I still own J and the rest of Sky Rush as well as the lyrics of the song. Yeah, just pick a tune and let your imagination run riot.**

* * *

**#5. "Hey, you know…"**

The lights dim and the bass roars its presence. Bit by bit does the melody of a guitar breathe its life into an already frenzied crowd. Strumming away his troubles for one night as he shakes the crimson locks from his eyes and slips on a mask of theatrical nonchalance. He closes his eyes and his voice rasps out the lyrics, rising from his throat and streaming from his lips like a well-oiled machine. The bass wails and the cymbals crash as the song personifies its jagged edges and jaded steel.

"_Whaddya know? Whaddya think?_

_Ain't it always the fools that die first?"_

His fingers scrape on the strings and the instrument moans in remembrance. The stage lights flash in accordance, staining light brown eyes red for seconds. They dim, revealing the sharp corners of his silhouette and the softness of his visage. The crowd mouths out his thoughts along with him, surrounding their souls to a force stronger than temptation. From the corners of his eyes, he can make out familiar turquoise tattooed skin and flaming fire-tipped hair. A piercing or two glints for a few seconds before succumbing to waves of darkness. If he concentrates a little harder, he can see a brawl or two erupt in the back rows. A year ago, he would have felt a rush of adrenalin at the sight of fists and feet flying in all directions but tonight he does not wish to be aroused so.

"_Hey! Do you see that?_

_D'you want a taste?_

_It's on my tongue, engraved in my skull._

_You don't wanna know."_

He sinks further into the trance, hair stringing down the sides of his face and his sweaty palms wringing the life out of the guitar in his arms. His fever is an infection that his willing fans are ready to risk. They build him up, they break him down, hungry for a bite of that raw hurt psyche. He shivers in their grasp as his friends look own with a newly heightened sense of wariness. Two of them accompanying him on-stage, keeping a close eye on every move he makes with his blade. The third remains in the shadows backstage, his disdain covered beneath a thick veil of hazy blue cigarette smoke.

"_But maybe it's only a dream._

_Figment of my requiem,_

_Rip away these bonds,_

_So that I may fly again." _

They scream out loud and bob their heads to the beat. The drums pound with his heartbeat and Sorrow encircles him with one long arm. A wave of nausea ebbs within him but he swallows it down. The symptoms of withdrawal are catching up with him and he begins to recall halcyon nights of drug-infested paradoxes and conundrums. The familiar sensations crawl beneath his skin. He squeezes his eyes shut and belts it out.

"_Hey, you know…_

_I think it's right._

'_Cause I don't need no truth to get by._

_You live, you die_

_Too young, too stupid."_

If they look within those eyes, they can see a reflection. A mirror of a pair darker than his own, resurrected from the ashes of his memories. Those very eyes he once bid adieu to, the same ones which he tries to send off now with a kiss as vicious as love. Because each song, each verse and each line is a goodbye kiss from him to her, to them, to his past. He sometimes wonders if his efforts have gone to waste as he watches all of them beat the tide to reach him. It is a phenomenon he cannot bear to comprehend.

So what does he do?

Lose himself in the one thing he knows and loves. Before 'that day', before chapter one, before the girl, there was him and the music. The sweet notes of the acoustic guitar lulling him to peace and silence. Those were the days of innocence and purity. If he bothers to look back, he can see the white oleander gleaming in the sunlight at the window and the sparrows hopping onto their perch on the window-sill.

But it aches.

So he doesn't.

"_I'm only a fool in despair._

_My ears ring with the static_

_As the voices in my head tell me,_

'_Hey you know, _

_Hey you know_

_Hey you know...'"_

After the show, he sits on the edge of the stage with his long, toned legs dangling from the top. The guitar lies exhausted and unplugged, used and abused like a battered wife. And just like that type of woman often is, it remains faithfully true to its commitment despite the lashings which rain down on it. He stares straight into the empty seats and thinks about nothing. After all, he is also the victim in such a case and can sympathize. Running his stinging fingers through his hair, he tugs at the roots because he feels like it. A few drops of endorphins release themselves into his blood before assimilating into the unknown. His head feels like it's had a few rounds with a sledge-hammer and he'd like to cry as he'd done as a child.

But he can't.

Those days were history. Time to be a man and suck it in.

The touch on his shoulder jolts him with surprise. He looks up expectedly and is disappointed to see his three friends crouched down behind him. In that moment, he would have given up anything to …

"Hwoarang? It's time we got going."

He feels himself nodding in agreement and getting up to follow them out.

"C'mon, man. You look like you could use some rest."

"… I guess."

He still would have given anything to feel _that _touch.

* * *

The air is cool in his room yet his skin burns like fire. He lies awake and impatient, waiting for sleep to claim him. The demons dance in the shadows across for him and he doesn't trust those glowing red eyes. He imagines a caterpillar bursting one of its seven skins and glowers in envy at the insect. When it molts into a butterfly, it would be free to flutter away unlike him. The sheets on his bed are warmed by his body heat making the beads of sweat prickle on his back.

Insomnia is a cold, heartless bitch.

Pain is a forthright vicious beast waiting to pounce on its defenseless prey.

It leaps.

It snatches him by the throat. Its claw digs in and he screams soundlessly. Grinning like a maniac, the monster hacks and slashes until its unfortunate victim lies paralyzed and semi-conscious on the floor. Instead of leaving him be, it hovers above him and breathes upon his wretched soul. The smell of clean sheets and smoking guns fill his nostrils until he can no longer inhale without choking. The pounding in his chest is too much to take and he feels that he might burst open at any minute.

Then… it stops.

He lies still and awake, covered in sweat and shame. There is a full moon out but the light doesn't reach his weary form. The smells linger around him, more subdued now. He tastes blood on his tongue where he'd bit his bottom lip. The scarlet liquid scorches acidly in his mouth so he lets it dribble down his chin, dry-retching at intervals.

There's no rest for the wicked.

* * *

Sung is an old drunk. Alcohol is the root of all his problems. It is the reason why he lost his job at the meat packing factory because he'd passed out during work hours. It is the reason why his wife threw him out due to his uncontrollable mood swings. It is the reason why he slums it out on the freezing, slick pavement with bottle in hand. He swears roughly when he tips it down his arid throat only to find it empty. With his begging, he'd saved up to fifty bucks in change and had naturally chosen to blow it all on his addiction of choice. Cheap liquor stores are an easy find, sandwiched between Laundromats and stationary stores of all places.

So he sits here, drunk as a first timer, huddling amidst a pile of discarded cardboard. But he's too jittery to succumb to sleep. He knows that one fucking hell of a hangover awaits him in the morning yet this was not the reason for his sudden nervousness.

Something about full moons didn't bode well for him. Like witches, hobgoblins, and those werewolf things.

Before he can brush it off from his mind, the muffled sounds of footsteps shook him alert. Sitting upright, he watches in suspicion as a tall, lean figure makes his way down the sidewalk. It's a man, young, head covered with the hood of a dark blue jacket. In the flickering light of a street lamp, Sung catches a glimpse of a few stray red hairs escaping the cloth's cover.

The man walks past him, arms loose by his side, his pace aimless. He mutters under his breath a long monologue of which nothing makes sense to the old drunkard.

"… won't be soon… sleep… they… Jules…"

Sung watches him disappear into the night and breathes a sigh of relief. Nothing but mere superstition…

A flicker in the street light distracts him. Blinking, he takes note of the young woman in the grey dress. She has her long brown hair in a single braid down her back and she watches the hooded man wistfully as he walks away. Pretty young thing, too smart looking to be another random hooker. Perhaps she was lost. Yes, just a lost young woman…

A blink and a yawn later, she's gone.

* * *

_My name is Hwoarang. I am nobody._

_The streets are silent and the sky's turning silver as morning dawns. I cannot sleep so my mind plays its games._

_The world is dark and quiet for now. The lucky ones sleep blissfully in their beds, unaware of the scum that lurks beneath their plastic shells. I know these streets like they know me. You can leave the streets behind you but the streets never leave you. _

_Home? I have none. She said home is where the heart is and mine has ceased to beat a long time ago._

_But I still bleed._

_Eleven years and my life's still as fucked up. I tell myself that he deserved it and it wasn't my fault but it's a damn lie. Eleven years on and I still bear the crux of their sins on my back. Selfish pieces of shit…_

_If I know that… why can't I move on?_

_I'm only human. Not an angel or a devil, only human. I cannot fly, I cannot rewrite what has been laid down. My heart lies dead in my hand and my soul wanders through a diseased Eden of its own. The wings I once had have been torn from my back by they who never leave me alone. The wounds hemorrhage hard and deep. The blood streams down my body and forms a network of dried lines and grooves. _

_So what if I'll never fly like I used to?_

_When I die, the shards of my spirit will be scattered amongst those who claim they know me well. Perhaps I'll stay there, a part of their being until they learn to forget about me and let me loose from their hearts. The music will fade and fade until it can be played no more._

_In the end, my name is all I have left. Let no one take that from me. _


	6. The space between dream and reality

**I know, I know... it's about damn time.**

**Disclaimer:**** Tekken and its respective characters are properties of Namco. I do, however, own Dr. Lani Novoselic.**

* * *

**#6. The space between dream and reality**

The morning mist tasted like sand vapors on his tongue as he inhaled. Icy, grainy, sharp, and wispy all at once. It had definitely been a while since he'd left the hotel. As to how long a while constituted, he had no clue. For all he knew, he may have been missing for a few days, let alone a few hours. Somewhere, maybe at this very moment, someone was wiping away the moist fogginess from their window, peering out, and wondering if he'd ever return. If he'd ever bother to come back home...

His surroundings were painted in shades of grey. A spectrum ranging from silver to charcoal reflected the fading poetry at the tips of his fingers as drops of light fought their way through the dark clouds. The navy blue of his hooded sweatshirt was losing its color, by and by. The blue was darkening, the material was cooling down below his body temperature. He tugged the damp cotton closer to his already shivering form. The cold normally had a revitalizing effect on him. The thick stream of smoke escaping his lips proved that. The glassy reflection of his eyes in the puddle was evidence of it.

The red in his hair tinged the light brown. The only tints of warmth in his urban winter landscape. More than alcohol, more than a quick fix, more than sex, he needed sleep. Lack of it had already addled his wandering mind.

_Close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out._

A snowflake. Eight sides, eight corners, white in its pure luminescence, silver in its darkness. Floating, free falling, down, down, down, landing in the palm of his hand, melting, flowing through his lifeline, dripping down onto the pavement. Another one follows, wafting down to its demise. Two, five, ten, twelve, sixteen... he lost count there. So he stood as still as could be, breathing their lives into him, small and fragile as they were. Anything to feel alive for one more time.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"

Her hair was in its usual braid. It shone through the grey, dark as an oil slick. Achingly real as an enigma. The snowflakes brushed past her bare arms in their descent, a few of them clinging to the thin material of her light grey dress. It wasn't right to him. Her, child of the sun, out in the freezing cold. She'd never liked winter.

"You're late, Jules."

"Sorry."

A stray flake landed on his eyelash, stinging him awake. He rubbed at it in irritation.

"Fuck this..."

"Wait..." Her breath was warm on his cheek as she blew away the excess moisture and wiped it off his bloodshot eye. "There..."

"Strange finding you out here."

"You wouldn't believe it."

"Don't Native Americans have about twenty words for 'snow'?"

She rolled her eyes in reply. "I have just one word for it: 'snow'."

He chuckled dourly at her sarcasm. "Ah, Julia, Julia. Never underestimate the magic of a winter wonderland."

A faint smile graced her lips. She leaned in closer and touched his shoulder.

"I guess I did rub off on you."

"Weirdness. Comes with the 'rockstar' package. Throw in some dysfunctionality, sarcasm, and self-pitying and you're all set to take the charts by storm. At least... that's what I figured out."

"... Wow."

"Yeah... I know."

He crushed another wayward snowflake between his thumb and fore-finger. Drops of water appeared as tiny crystals crumbling onto the cold concrete.

"I guess I got what I wanted. The 'love' I receive from my fans? I thought it'd make up for what I'd missed out on. I'd thought that if I could lose myself in the riffs and solos of my guitar strings, I'd forget. Music was supposed to be my escape, my chance at freedom. And this was what I ended up with. I'm as messed up as those wannabe emo freaks who know shit about what it's like to hurt. When _I _hurt, it's _my_ blood that flows into those lyrics and strings. I do what I can for them and they skin me alive for more. You know what? People are fuckin' leeches. They always suck the life out of someone who's stronger than they are. That's how they survive for too long.

"There you have it. Hwoarang's fucked-up philosophy on life. Whaddya think, Jules?"

"Walk with me."

"... What?"

She held out her hand.

"Walk away with me."

"Where to?"

"... The rest of your life..."

Her grasp was frail in his. One wrong move and it might break. Beneath their feet, the thickening quilt of white crunched as they moved along. One step at a time, steady as she goes. Above them, the snow continued its descent, unaware of the dirt that awaited them.

"Hwoarang... I get it."

"Get what?"

"What you're looking for. Everyone is, including me. We spend our whole lives searching for it, pure and unconditional as it is. Because it's what we live for, from the moment we take our first breath, no matter how faint and distant it may seem. It's like we're gambling with our hearts on the line. But if the wager's worth it, what've we got to lose?"

"... Wow."

The Native girl glanced downwards and sighed before continuing. "Call it a gift or a curse but it's still mine. It just comes naturally. You can be the most crazy, screwed-up, undeserving asshole in the entire universe and I'd still understand how you got that way."

"If you can't help it, then don't beat yourself up about it."

"I... I don't know. I've always been like this."

"But it's you. And I wouldn't want that to change."

"Why?"

He hated questions like this one. You never had a right answer for them.

"Why, Hwoarang? Give me _one_ good reason why."

"Because..."

_Close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out._

"You oughta know why, Jules..."

"So that's how it is."

He missed the mark where he'd aimed and instead had to contend with sliding his numb lips over her hair. It was warm, unlike the rest of her body, and he weakly kissed the spot at the top of her head. It was either that or the cold which made her tremble in his arms.

"I've always been your fool, Hwoarang..."

_Close your eyes._

_Breathe in._

_Breathe out._

* * *

"Close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out."

"You're not helping much..." He glanced at the name-plate on the oaken desk in the office. "... Lani."

"You're not concentrating, Hwoarang."

To say that he felt rather idiotic lying here on a green velvet chaise-lounge was an understatement. On the bright side, the shrink was pretty easy on the eyes. Long, dark hair scraped back into a loose chignon and bright, blue-green eyes behind a pair of rectangle-shaped black spectacles. Dr. Lani... Novoselic, eh? Must be Scandinavian or something...

"Hwoarang?"

"Ye-es?"

"Are you still thinking about that dream?"

"It wasn't a dream."

A turquoise pair of eyes stared at him, half quizzical, half bemused. "So, you're _sure _that you _didn't_ sleep walk out of your hotel-room last week, dream about your ex-girlfriend, and then wind up lying down on the highway with a fever?"

The urge to swipe her with a coarse comeback line was a strong one but he withdrew from instinct. Just a few more hours of this psychobabble crap and then he'd be free to leave. Only to return next week. Damn...

"Hwoarang, you chose to be here for a reason."

"I didn't _choose_ to be here. That was my management talking."

"All the more evidence that your behavior is beginning to affect those around you. Especially your friends. I'm here to help as long as you're willing to _help yourself_."

Those last two words were admonished with the severity of a warning. Hwoarang lapsed into silence and decided to hold his tongue. For the moment. Pleased with her handiwork, Lani snapped her notebook shut, ready to deliver a textbook analysis of his current condition.

"Ever heard of dream interpretation? Well, as sketchy as it is, it does have its rare moments of revelation. Sometimes, the lines between reality and our subconscious blur so that we often confuse one for the other. Your descriptions of falling snow might not have been unusual to your reasoning were it not for the fact that this phenomenon took place in an early summer month. Logically speaking, it's impossible."

"Sure felt real to me."

"I'm sure it must have. But think of it this way... why snow? Why _her_? Why _now_?"

"How do you expect me to figure that out? You're the one with the 'Psych 101' handbook."

A brief smile quirked her mouth to a corner. "A bit of reflection does wonders. Whilst I don't expect any answers from you right now, I want you to do something for me. Or rather, yourself."

She got up, walked over to her desk, and pulled out a moss-green spiral notepad from a drawer. With a deft flick of her wrist, it was tossed through the air and into his hands.

"What's this?"

"A journal."

"Aw, great..."

"A necessary evil, if I must say so myself."

"You want me to write down whatever I had for breakfast and read it out for you?"

"Not quite _that _specific. I just want you to reflect more on your dreams, write down how you feel about them, and then maybe we could find a chain that links them."

"Hmph."

The diary slid unwanted onto the floor. "Lani, do yourself a favor and go join a modeling agency. I heard the water's nice and shallow over there..."

* * *

**Happy New Year.**


	7. Superstar

**Guys, thanks so much for the support on 'Wake' and 'Lay It To Rest'. I feel heaps better just reading your sweet reviews over and over again. Excusing my dorkery, let's just cut to the chase, shall we? Sigh, more weirdness in store, I'm afraid. Man, I _really _hope that my writing improves in the future.**

**Disclaimer:**** Me owning Tekken? Yeah right, and the Jacks aren't totally pointless...**

* * *

**#7. Superstar**

_Hello Diary,_

_Yeah, she talked me into it. Always was a sucker for beautiful eyes anyway. So now I'm supposed to spill my angsty guts into a little green note-book so that I can 'feel better about myself'. What's the point? Angst is good for art. Art is self-expression. Self-expression is a basic human right. I don't _have _to 'feel better' if I don't wanna. This is me being me, Hwoarang as Hwoarang. The uncensored, X-rated version so suck it up and brace yourself, ya got it?_

_Now what was it that I was supposed to whine about?_

_Ah yes, my infamous 'dreams'..._

_Isn't reality all about perception? There is no reality, only different points of views. What you and everyone else around me 'sees' is just a 'dream'. A figment of my imagination, possibly even something that tells you that I'm missing my ex-girlfriend a tad more than I should. Which should also obviously explain the booze, the occasional run-ins with the drugs, and the highlight of every hormone-driven guy's fantasy: the one-night stands. It's funny if you look at it that way, that everything has a reason and that A _should_ result in B. Reasons are sometimes just mere excuses for what's happening. Some things don't have to make sense to be real... many things... things I may never experience again..._

* * *

3 years ago

Morning, early winter, fresh patches of snow on the ground, bare trees, breath condensing to wispy clouds before his eyes. The notes rose from the strings in lazy succession, taking their time reverberating through the air with only cold windy static for interference. The woody smell from the tree-bark behind him was dying in the frost and the ground was rock-solid beneath his stretched-out legs. A woodpecker tapped away in the distance.

It was perfect.

He liked winter. The cold made him stronger by giving him something to fight against. Whether it was the icy floorboards of Baek's dojangor the wind nipping his bare fingers, he needed it so he could feel alive. The sunlight was just how he liked it; pale and weak. Not even the dead robin in the grass could deter him from embracing a challenge. He couldn't help but laugh at Julia, sitting right across from him. Shivering under a layer comprising a sweater, an over-sized jacket, a ragged woolen hat, and a blanket with her lily-white hands curled around a maroon thermos flask.

"Hey Jules!"

He was met with a frigid glare.

"You know where we could spend the summer? Alaska! It'd be great. Plenty of snowballs for me to throw at you, hot Eskimo dudes to ogle at, and all the moose you could ask for!"

"... I don't like you."

"Aw," Hwoarang placed a hand over his heart, a look of mock mournfulness on his face. "You're making me sad."

Her mouth twitched upwards momentarily in a brief smile. "You _are _sad."

"Sad, sick, twisted, cruel, mean, nasty. Hey, it's a talent!"

"Must be. And _hot _Eskimos? You've just hit a new lameness low."

"Why not? I heard you get cool Arabs in the desert."

"Lolz."

"Lolz?" He commented with a raised eyebrow. A sudden gust of wind made the girl gasp in shock. Wrapping the blanket tighter around herself, she replied with a frown.

"It's too damn cold to laugh. Why are you always this hyper in winter?"

"'Cause summer's too hot." Another languid note echoed the woodpecker's tap. "Makes me feel tired and sleepy."

Somewhere from beneath that cave of cotton and wool, a pair of dark-brown eyes peered out at him. "I thought you liked summer."

"What gave you that idea?"

"I dunno... you always looked forward to going to the beach. You'd literally drag me over there so that you could catch a wave."

A few seconds and one snicker from him later, a light-bulb went on in her mind and she puffed out her cheeks in mirth. "Or maybe catching _waves_ wasn't really on your list of priorities?"

"Uh-uh," he grinned, clasping his hands behind his head and gazing dreamily at the fluffy expanse of cloud above him. "A&T. Grab it while it's hot."

"Ew, get your head out of your pants."

"Stunning visual you got there."

"Ugh, yuck."

He resumed strumming. "Anyways, Brazilian string bikinis and mini-skirts aside, summer sucks."

"Pithy. Yet trite. Care to elucidate?"

"Summer makes me feel... wasted. Not like when you've had one two many beers at the bar or anything but... just sick inside. The heat annoys me because it beats me down and then stands over and laughs at me. Plants wither in the heat, so do I. The sun's kinda like this big bully in the playground, ya know?"

"You've... got a point."

"You don't agree."

"No," she shook her head, releasing a few strands of hair trapped beneath her cap. "I like summer. There's youth in the air and a spring in my feet. School's out, the flowers are blooming, and there's always a great open-air concert in the streets. A bit clichéd but it rings true."

"Concerts and no school, I like. Breaking into a sweat within two seconds of stepping outside, that I can live without."

"Ice-cream tastes better in summer."

"Same here in winter."

"Ice-cream in winter? More like rocksicles if you ask me."

"And I bet that gnawing them is just as rewarding as slurping those cones you like."

"Have you tried it?"

"No. But I wouldn't mind."

Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of a furry, beige silhouette in the midst of a pile of mossy leaves and blackened bark. The squirrel stood upright on its hind legs, bright beady eyes alert and aware of its surroundings. With a twitch of a currant-like nose, it sniffed the air for a familiar scent. A roasted cashew nut was tossed its way, courtesy of the young Native girl huddled against the chill. After a moment's hesitation, the nut was soon scooped up by a pair of padded paws and whisked away to a secret hiding-place.

"Julia? Did you know that you look like a squirrel?"

Resulting response was an immediate sharp turn of her head in his direction.

"What do you mean?"

"Not always. Only sometimes. It's _not_ an insult in case you wanted to deck me."

"I didn't think of it as such. I like squirrels but what's it about me that reminds you of them?"

"The head-cocking thing." he deadpanned.

"What head-cocking thing?"

"The one you're doing now. And the eyes, the way you're staring at me too."

She flushed, averting her neck and straightening her neck self-consciously as he chuckled at the resemblance. In a nearby sycamore, said animal observed the ongoing comedy with the same hyper-curious expression it had worn earlier, teeth gnashing away at the prize in its possession.

"Hey, it's okay, Jules! It's not like you remind me of a squashed rat like Kazama does."

Her imagination got the best of her and she giggled. "He's not _that_ bad-looking..."

"Heh, you should see the look in his eyes at times. Like when he's watching out for his dumb-ass fan-girls. I swear I've seen his nose twitch because he's sniffing the air for a trace of their perfume so that he knows when to make his getaway."

Through peals of muffled laughter, he caught a snatch of "Oh spirits." followed by a proclamation to some other mysterious deity. Spurred on to hear more of the same, he continued his sharp-tongued verbal assault on their unfortunate class-mates.

"Now what other animals? Oh yeah, Christie's more of a fox than Steve is - "

"She's more free-spirited though. A lot like a bird, I'd say..."

"Okay then. How about Xiaoyu?"

"A koala. Small, cute, and always clinging to Jin."

"I was thinking more of..." Hwoarang began to snap his fingers in a steady rhythm as he fought to remember. Seconds later, with a dramatic flick of his wrist and a loud, resounding 'crack!', he had his answer. "Jules! D'you remember that fair last year?"

"Yeah." she replied with an air of nostalgia, no doubt reminiscing about autumn nights filled with copper-leaved breezes and the smoky smell of summer's slow, peaceful demise. "I remember that very well."

"Remember that gypsy girl?"

"She wasn't gypsy. Just a Hispanic in colorful rags trying to fit in with everyone's romantic notions of what one may look like."

"Whatever. She had a chimp with her, right? In a pink dress for chrissake!"

This was definitely an imaginary sight for sore eyes. She threw her head back and laughed, not noticing that the woolen cap slipped off as she did so. "Hwoarang!"

"What? Don't go telling me 'oh, you're _so _mean, Hwo' now."

"No! It's just that... you're making a mockery out of the poor monkey."

That did it. His raucous cackles were released through streams of white smoke into the air. "Gawd, trust you to say that. You really surprise me at times, Julia Chang."

"There are a _lot_ of things about me that would surprise you."

"Same here."

"I know..."

A chill, not from the wind, ran down his spine. The trees looked terribly bare to the frost and their shadows were growing longer. Long, dark shadows with fingers as gnarled and thick as the branches above them.

"Hwoarang?"

"Hm?"

"Is there something... well, anything... that I can do?"

"For what?"

"... To make it hurt less."

"..."

She closed her eyes and took a nervous sip out of the thermos. The breeze had blown some of her hair onto her face. As he watched her, the tapping faded into the distance until it was a mere echo of what it had been. Without that frowzy cap on her head, the dying light was able to cast its remains on the deep brown color, softening it to cocoa. He swallowed and his hands trembled with the thoughts that were building up within him. Trying to sort out the beginning, middle, and end so that he'd have at least a trace of a story to repay her with. But where to start and how to end?

She opened her eyes and turned to him, questioning silently.

He failed.

The half-unbuttoned jacket was knocked askew off one shoulder revealing a creamy sweater. She was blessed warmth in his arms and her hair smelt like shampoo. Some kind of flowery bouquet in a bottle. At any moment, he expected her to shove him off and run away into the woods like a frightened deer.

She stayed.

A hand smaller than his slipped into his numb palm and pressed down on it with a firmness that caught him unawares. Silky, slightly damp threads of brown hair were pressed against his heated forehead. She tasted bitter... coffee, that's what was in the thermos, coffee. Bitter with a sweet aftertaste. A rush of chi to his hands, chest, head, and heart, drumming out the winter static, another hand on his cheek, fingers gliding over his skin, his own meeting hers...

Summer sunshine...

Spring breezes...

Relief.

_It's alright. It's okay. Take it easy._

Pause.

Her downy head lay quiet and smiling against his chest, still wrapped up in his arms, safe and sound from the shadows. Embers reigniting in the pit of his stomach reminded him of fairy-tales wherein children find shelter from a harsh reality. Drops of sunlight flickered in the dark patches before seeping into the earth, warming the sleeping spring flowers in their resting places beneath the snow. The red breast of the deceased robin glowed like fire, setting the yellowing grass aglow in its passion from its liberated spirit. His guitar lay abandoned at a side where the reflected light painted the wood in amber and sienna.

Perfect.

From out of the blue, a drop struck a chord within him and he smiled into her hair...

* * *

_Our first kiss._

_It was perfect because it was._

_She had me by my heart and I felt... like I could just run, jump off a cliff, spread my wings, and fly to the stars. After all, they came to call me the Blood Talon. A bird of prey. And what is a bird if not useless without his wings? A superstar can't shine without his light. Where'd she go? I have no idea. After I left, she was reduced to an e-mail address in my inbox. It's been a while since we last had contact in 'real life'. I guess she's moved on to better things. Maybe there's no place in her heart for a picture of me._

_But she's still here with me. For now._

_These dreams are only dreams to the likes of you. But for me, they're more real to me than anything else I've ever had. She's truer than a lyric and better than a high. Dream or not, all that matters is that she's here with me for as long as I need her. That's what she said._

_If I can only be at peace in a part of my sleep, then let me rest for an eternity._

_This is my momentary truth. You may think as you wish, Lani._


	8. Our own world

**Thanks for the reviews, guys! Seriously, I appreciated each and every one of then even if I didn't have time to reply back. I'll try and reply more often from now on. No guarantees though.**

**Disclaimer: ** **Do I own Tekken? Nooo.... do I own Sky Rush and the other OCs? Yes, I most certainly do. Plus, the lyrics are pretty crappy so that means I must own them too. Kiddies, watch out for the swearing.**

* * *

**#8. Our own world **

12 years ago

"We'll just be at the supermarket for a couple of hours. Don't open the door to strangers and call us if there's an emergency. You have the numbers?"

Hwoarang nodded in reply before closing the door after his parents. Finally, alone at home for once. Such a reward had been 'way overdue' in his opinion. Having the house to himself was a privilege he had only envisioned for the year he'd turn twelve. At nine years of age, it was three years cut short and all the more welcome. Perfect weather for staying cooped up indoors too. Overcast skies and mild, early spring temperatures. As he listened to the humming of his father's new car fade evenly into the distance, the secret grin on his face widened until he felt its silent glow warm his face. There goes the hurricane, spinning far, far away from his hideout...

He kept the lights off, preferring the soft shadows which hid his bruises from himself and the rest of the world. For 'a couple of hours', the world was his sky to fly, soar, flit, dive, and do anything else he wanted before the stormier clouds would return. One step at a time, his bare feet slid across the cold tiles, a shallow reflection mirroring them below. The gauze netting shielding the windows glowed with an effervescent light, black silhouettes of flowers in vases and china ornaments standing stark against the background. He reached his destination, a royal blue sofa, plopped down it and retrieved the TV remote from its hiding place.

There never seemed to be anything interesting on when he did have the time and boredom to flick channel after channel. A bright, pastel-colored commercial for a new doll-house set, a soap-opera where the women in designer clothes wailed and screamed at tired-looking men who kept their eyes locked on gold-plated watches on their wrists, a monotonous talk-show about budgerigars and a cartoon about a talking cat wearing a fedora all passed through him with minimal impact. The rain which had begun a few hours earlier as a light drizzle had now thickened to a proper wet downpour. He eventually gave up and stopped at a concert, an old one, featuring a dirty-blond, scrawny lead singer in a band who mumbled incoherently into the mic.

The boy lay down and stretched out on the cushions. A sleeve fell away to showcase a few inches of wrist skin, tainted by splotches of black and blue. He left it as it was, exposed to nothing but mere darkness. The blond singer moaned away to a mostly silent audience as he traced the marks, pressing down on them so that they hurt. If he felt it, that meant he was still trapped in this monochrome cage he was forced to call 'home'.

Perhaps he should run away, he thought. Run away and never come back.

_Yes..._

With impulsive resilience, he switched off the TV and rushed to the front hallway, where the outdoor shoes were stacked on a dull grey aluminum rack. He pulled out his soggy, worn-out pair of trainers with the socks still inside them and yanked them on, not bothering with the fact that they were dirty and in want of a good airing. The excitement and joy made his heart pound his entire body into a spastic set of limbs and organs. Liberty lay behind the door, beckoning to him and spreading her arms wide open, a serene smile on her lips.

With one last grunt and the final knot on his laces tied, his hand was clamped around the chilly steel of the door-knob and then grinding it to release him from the chains which bound him from flight...

He was out of the house and off the door-step in a single leap, embraced by the rain, rivulets creeping down his collar and beneath his t-shirt. He splashed through puddles as wide as lakes, letting the water rush into his clothes, skin, and hair before the joy was struck by the fear.

It came like lightning. A bolt of electric current, stunning him into a petrified halt.

Fear. Memories clearing and sharpening with his image in the water. His mother's terrified eyes, the crack of dark light flashing in his father's. The ball and chain remained still, binding him by blood to them. More than blood, it was that unseen bond stronger than hate that resisted his attempts to break free.

What is this bond?

Family.

Loyalty, duty, respect, love.

As to where this all fit, he hadn't the slightest clue. But it had to fit in somewhere somehow. He _needed _ to know... why he stayed.

The rain slid through the strands of his hair, wetting glossy black into a slicker shade, plastering it to his head. Added moisture made the weight of his clothes heavier on an already burdened mind. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The ties that binded him began to pull him back towards the front-door and into the looming gloom of the hallway inside. Shutting the door behind him, he wiped away the salty droplets which were welling up in his brown eyes. Back to square one...

A few hours later, he was in his pajamas and snuggled beneath in the warmth of a thick comforter. His parents were still absent. The minute hand on his bedside table crawled on with lackadaisical pacing. Thirty-five... thirty-six... thirty-seven... tick... tick... tick...

Feeling disgruntled and restless, the covers were thrown off and his feet were padding along the tiles once more. Aimless with nowhere to go. It was tempting to run barefoot through the grass in the cool of the night but he dared not take that risk in case they arrived unexpectedly. So here he remained, a kestrel with clipped wings. Unable to fly, unable to dream...

Alone, he began to hum softly to himself.

A song of loneliness, a song of wistfulness. Unfulfilled, unrealized dreams of a better future where he didn't have to feel so trapped within himself. He wasn't perfect and neither were they. It bothered him that nobody could see that. Nobody but him. Maybe... he'd find somebody who could see what he could. A small part of himself dared to hope that there _had_ to be someone out there. Someone who'd listen when he'd speak, without interrupting or judging his thoughts, that perfect someone who _had _ to exist somewhere in some place...

But for now... it was only him and himself.

And the soundless, wordless music playing within his wondering heart.

Without knowing it, he found himself in sacred territory... his parents' closet. Listening to the pleading ache within him, he brushed past coats and dresses until he found it. A pale pink, satin blouse. With an intricate cherry-blossom print and a wrap-around waist. His mother had worn it last year on her wedding anniversary. He remembered it because that had been the first and only time he'd thought of her as beautiful. She'd seemed so happy too, laughing and smiling like nothing was ever wrong. Her hair had been loose and flowing down to her shoulders... the perfume had been new too... sweet and flowery.

He traced his hands over the smooth, silky material, trying to recollect the memory leaking out of his mind. In a desperate attempt to seal it, he wrapped the sleeves around his neck, pretending that she'd hugged him that day. He nuzzled closer into the blouse, breathing in her scent. When had she last held him with the tenderness as befits a mother? He definitely couldn't recall... maybe when he was a tiny little baby, weak and helpless in her arms. Had he lost that appeal he once had? He must have, he concluded. It explained why she'd never hugged him like that...

Sighing, he let go. The sleeves fell back without as much as a rustle.

He felt his toes nudge something hard. Looking down, he caught sight of a dark cube... a box. It was covered with leather, soft and springy under his touch. Curiosity got the better of him, urging him to slip his fingers underneath the lid and lift it. His hand groped around until his fingers touched icy metal. A somewhat L-shaped piece of metal with a round part and something like a switch on it...

He let the lid fall, leaving the gun inside...

* * *

"Okay guys, we're taping now! On the count of three, right? One, two, three!"

The sound of the lone bass sliding in unnoticed jarred Hwoarang back to the present.

"Okay, that's it! CUT!!"

Now he remembered. He was in a recording studio, supposedly working on new material with his band-mates, in the presence of J plus a pudgy, short-tempered record producer and his drowsy (and rather inebriated) assistant.

"What the fuck kinda professionalism do ya call this shit?! Fuckin' fifth time this happened!"

"Actually, it was the third." J replied to the furious man's diatribe.

Further enraged at this audacity, the producer turned his attention to the chain-smoking Korean and unleashed a string of saliva-flecked insults which did nothing to faze the latter. Han, ever the stubbornly comedic drummer, leaned forward from behind the cymbals and muttered, "Looks like someone needs a beer."

"We'd be worse off if he was drunk." murmured Kim the bassist as he quietly fingered his instrument with a hint of boredom.

"True, true. But I still rather _not _ have Chubby over there yell at us like his ass depended on it."

"I think his ass _does _ depend on it."

"Whatever. His loss if we don't feel like working with him."

"Yeah," Hwoarang had to agree with his friend for once. "Screw him if he can't keep a damn lid on his temper. It's not like I care..."

A rueful grimace crept onto Kim's face. "Well, to tell you the truth guys, I really can't blame ol' Dan for being so pissed off. His assistant's passed out at the soundboard - " He nodded his head at the drunk in context whose face was still hidden behind folded arms. " - and we have our boy J in the corner smoking like a chimney. And Rang? No offense, man but you're not helping things when you zone out like that."

The red-haired man bowed his head. "Sorry."

"S'alright. Just try to keep focusing on the big picture."

"It's... harder than you think."

"Your shrink's not helping much, huh?"

"Well... she is but..." Hwoarang fumbled with the strings as he struggled for the right words which wouldn't make him sound like a complete nutcase. "Things just keep happening to remind me of... things."

_Lame. Way to go, Hwo. Show 'em you're not in control and losing your fucking head._

"Hey, don't worry about it!" Han chipped in. "All you need to do is dig deep, find your inner light, and let it shine."

"Han... do I have to keep on reminding you to wean yourself off that 'Kingdom Hearts' game?"

"No way, Hwo! Kim already does that for me. You're the one that tells me to lay off the Gatorade."

Hwoarang rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh..."

"And J tells me 'to grow up and start living in the real world'. Party pooper."

"I wonder why." Kim stated with mock innocence. The drummer frowned at the fresh round of chuckles which thus sprang forth.

"Ha ha ha, so you think that I can't be mature? Well, I... dammit! I almost forgot!" Han abandoned his drum sticks and began to rummage through the various pockets of his cargo trousers, effectively spraying the surrounding area with pieces of crumpled tissue paper, multicolored gum wrappers, and cookie crumbs. Seconds later, he produced a tattered bit of paper and held it out for Hwoarang to see.

It took two quick readings to finally register the absurdity of the idea in his brain.

"No - "

"YES!!"

" - way."

The stick which had been tossed into the air with much over-enthusiastic abandon immediately landed with an unceremonious 'thump!' on Han's head. "Why?!"

Scrunching the paper into a ball to emphasize his point, Hwoarang hissed, "_Because_ we're gonna look like friggin' morons!"

"No, we won't! The fans would love it!"

"Love what?" Kim asked.

The word 'cosplay' uttered in two vastly different tones elicited a shudder from him.

"Aw, come on, guys! It'll be fun!"

"I'm sticking with Hwoarang on this one."

"What?!" Han tugged at hisblond hawk in dismay. "Okay, how 'bout if I made things easier for you guys by picking your outfits?"

Hwoarang turned to an equally disbelieving Kim. "Why do I suddenly feel more uneasy?"

"Oooh, oooh, I know! _I _ could go as Spike Spiegal - "

"Dude, you look nothing like him."

" - and we could dress up J as Light Yagami! You know, the guy from 'Death Note'? Wouldn't take much effort either. Oh, and with a little more stubble, Kim could practically pass as the Asian version of Chris Redfield! And Hwoarang, I know the perfect guy from Final Fantasy whom you could - "

"OI!! Done with your kitty party?!"

Dan had apparently run out of insults to fling at an uninterested J. Unfortunately, his bad mood remained intact.

"So, Red! Ready to work or d'you still wanna wear that frilly pink apron and cry over your teacup?"

"The name's Hwoarang and, yeah, we'd love to get down to business if you're ready to keep your damn opinions about people to your damn self."

"Woah, hold it right there." Dan leaned forward and clenched his fists together as he eyed the glaring front-man before him. "Now you think that you're the only prick in this room with problems? Eh? That's what you think? Well listen up, sweetheart, 'cause I got executives and their crap on my ass twenty-four seven non-stop just for the sole purpose for getting their grubby lil' hands on money that _you _ are supposed to earn for them. How're you gonna earn that cash? By setting yourselves up with guys like me who're supposed to set your asses to work so that your pretty dreams about fame and fortune can come true. Ain't that right, Dave?"

Dave, the far-from-sober assistant, lifted up his grizzly head and nodded sleepily before slumping into disorientation once more. Satisfied, Dan continued with his rant.

"Lemme tell you something, kid. You may think you're the next Kurt fucking Cobain or that Chester Whatever-ya-call-him but right now? You're just a punk with a Godzilla-sized chip on your shoulder. You either work when you're supposed to or leave and end up right where you started: a bunch of nobodies playing at shitty night-clubs for fifty bucks an hour. So, what'll it be?"

Hwoarang grit his teeth and adjusted the mic on its stand.

Dave sat up, grinned through his straggly beard, flashed them a peace sign, and then fell off his chair.

* * *

Damn. Now he couldn't get that last song out of his head.

_Here it comes again_

_The storm clouds blazing in my path_

There was a light drizzle outside. The weather forecast had predicted thunderstorms for tonight. He began to remember old warnings about never calling someone on the land-line during such weather. You could get electrocuted because the telephone lines acted as a type of conductor for lightning. That had been so during the days when mobiles were a rarity. Nothing like that to worry about nowadays.

_I'll gather my fears and fling them into the hurricane in my way_

_Let them scatter to pieces before my eyes_

He sang softly to himself as he peeled off his shirt and flung it aside, not caring where it landed. It had rained when Baek had died, it had rained on the day he'd got his bike, and now it was raining when nothing had happened at all. This worried him a bit. Rain always happened for a reason, good or bad.

Hang on... he was contradicting himself. He didn't believe in reason anymore. Things just happened in his world, unfortunate or not.

Was it his imagination or was there a flicker in the rain outside his window?

"Hey, Jules."

He must be dreaming again. A small nod told him that she was at least listening.

"I don't know where to start. Or where to end for that matter. It's like the past and present are melding into one foggy haze. You know what happens when you get caught in the fog, right? You wander around not knowing where you began or where you're headed. Sometimes, you walk past stuff which you know _is _ there but you don't see it. It's been that way with me for quite some time now. I don't know where I'm going either. I just know that I have to get _somewhere_ eventually if I keep on moving."

He lay back on his bed, staring straight up at the ceiling. Her dark eyes met his, mysterious and deep. And understanding. Always understanding.

"But what if I get tired? Soldiers are humans too, it's bound to happen. I mean, I got my ass kicked today by some fat dude with some anger management issues. Okay, not literally but... you know. These things just stick at the back of your mind and come out when you're alone with no one to help you forget.

"You'd help me forget, would you, Julia? Or would you make me remember like Lani does? I don't know what else to do. I'm sick and tired of... feeling sick and tired all the time. Could you do anything to fix that? In our own world? Just you and me? No worries, no nightmares, no problems. Just us."

She looked down and shrugged sadly before melting into the rain.

"Sorry. I forgot... you're only a memory." he mumbled apologetically before he blew her a kiss goodbye.

* * *


	9. Dash

**Finally! An update! And can I just say that I LOVED writing this chapter? I hope you guys enjoy reading it too.**

**Disclaimer:**** Don't own Tekken or any of its characters. Do own Lani, the other Sky Rush members, and the lyrics.**

* * *

**#9. Dash**

The water was black and at his waist-level. Judging by its low temperature, he'd probably pass out from hypothermia before he'd find a way out of this... cavern, he assumed. Neither his head nor arms were nudging any ceiling or wall so it must be a large one. No light to guide him to a safe path. He couldn't even see his own hands or the rest of his torso when he looked down. Infinitely blind, he took careful measured steps, barely lifting a foot more than a few centimeters off the ground for fear he'd slip. Arms folded and head hung low, every inhalation of the dank, stale air drying his throat.

"_Hello there."_

"Go away."

"_Now that wasn't very nice."_

Sorrow was back. Or was it Pain? Sometimes, he really couldn't tell one from the other. They were usually pretty much the same anyway. Both were demons of the highest caliber of sadism, both had it in for him particularly. Ironically, it had been him who had first injected life into them. One impulsive act followed by blow upon blow delivered by Fate. And then he'd gone and contributed with his own mistakes, thereby fattening them up and stroking their desire for destruction.

"_Absolutely filthy this place is, isn't it? Then again, I digress. This must be the perfect mourning spot for a rat of your pedigree."_

"I'm through with mourning. I'm moving on."

"_So you're 'through' with remembering as well?"_

"... No."

"_Ahh, see?" _It ran a long taloned finger through the coppery strands of his hair smugly. _"You're not _really _getting anywhere."_

"I will. Someday."

"_'Someday' is what they tell the patients at a cancer ward. Or a child who wants a puppy for his birthday. Do you honestly think that either of them would get what they wish for?"_

"They can. If they believe hard enough."

The talon froze. He felt it frown behind him.

"_You're lying."_

"No, I'm not."

"_You only force yourself to believe in it because _she _does."_

"She believes in me."

"_And?"_

"And it's only fair that I should believe in her."

The voice cackled with malice. _"You poor fool. Do you think that she could seriously ascribe to become your Saviour? The Queen of your heart? A Goddess even?"_

"... She said..."

"_She said, she said, she said." _the voice mocked._ "Heed my warning, dear. She's barely any more divine than _you_ are. When misery comes to call, she will weep. When all hope is lost, she will cower in fear. And when death taps at her door, she will die."_

"I know that. We're only human after all. That's what makes her more special to me."

"_Of course. You 'humans' are a disgustingly weak species if I must say so myself. Like your mother for instance - "_

"Don't - " He caught himself gagging. "Don't talk about... her."

"_And why not? Don't you remember the look on her face when you returned home from that makeshift Hell they called a 'juvenile detention center'?"_

"Quiet!"

"_I don't think she was very pleased to see you."_

"I said 'QUIET'!!"

His voice echoed, leaving him flushed and panting, wiping away furious tears from his eyes. The demon smirked broadly as it hit its target.

"_Still sore about that, aren't we? Tsk, tsk, who's going to save you now? Your sweet little lovebird or - "_

The claws on each paw snatched at a piece of skin from his back and dragged him closer to itself.

" _- would you rather prefer drowning instead?"_

With that, he was shoved forward, away from it. In his sudden panic, he lost his footing and landed headfirst into the murky water. Darkness compounded with the inability to breathe made the ordeal even more terrifying for him. The black swirled into his eyes, nose, and mouth in spite of his flailing attempts at finding firm ground to upright himself. In a few seconds, the water was high above his head and he was sinking into the abyss...

Hwoarang shuddered as he awoke. He'd ended up sprawled over the couch in his living-room which wasn't bad for a change. There had once been a time when he'd awaken in the morning after a hard night's partying to find himself in a strange bed, lying next to a woman he could barely recall meeting...

* * *

Something about Lani Novoselic's sweet, gentle smile didn't bode well for him. With a woman as intelligent and cunning as her, Hwoarang could never be too sure of himself. Nevertheless, it was possible that he _could _be imagining things. If his psych profile was anything to go by, he was growing pretty damn good at it.

"How are you today, Hwoarang?"

"Um... fine?"

"And how were you last night?"

He gulped. "O-okay... I slept well."

"Hm." Her eyes seemed to glint behind her glasses. Or was that a trick of the light? "And how many cans of beer would it have taken to help you achieve that state of restful bliss?"

"How'd you know?"

In reply, a tabloid was swept into his hands. On the cover was a glossy photograph of a bleached-blond, orange-tanned, blue-eyed young woman in a minuscule pink bikini, smiling cheesily at the camera. In bright yellow lettering splashed across the page, the headline proclaimed 'Boob Job For Real?!'. A bit aghast at the size of the starlet's chest, Hwoarang glanced up at Lani, his lower jaw hanging.

"Wha - ?"

"Page six."

Flipping over to the said page, he finally found the evidence of his misdeeds from the previous night. A smallish article (by tabloid standards) but still mostly accurate in describing his 'haggard, rumpled appearance complete with red-rimmed eyes' and 'rude, loutish behavior'. Much to his annoyance, they'd also taken great care to refer to him as the 'Intoxicated' lead singer whose 'dalliances with drink and drugs' have to lead to 'tarnishing his band's reputation'. Fuck, they'd even gotten the name wrong...

"Quite a charming impression you've made on the press."

"Like I care. It's the band that matters."

"And since the lead vocalist is what often 'makes' the band, then I'd suggest that you buckle down and start being honest with me from now on, Hwoarang."

"Fine." he scowled. Lani tightened her grip on her pen, positioned an inch above her notepad.

"Your mood swings also seem apparent in your journal entries."

"... I don't feel like pouring out my soul to a fuckin' stupid book seven fuckin' days a week."

"I understand. However - " she picked up the green notebook from the side-table he'd placed it on and began to leaf through it. "Perhaps blank spaces are preferable to downright sarcasm. June third, 'I saw a kitten on the road today. If only it got run over.'."

"What can I say," Hwoarang yawned and stretched out on his usual place on the lounge-chaise. "Roadkill goes great with ketchup and mayonnaise. Yum yum."

"June seventh, 'Ran around after Han with a pair of scissors.'"

"I thought that if I was gonna try and kill myself again I might as well take someone with me."

"And my personal favorite: June tenth, 'The lasagna! IT LIVES!!'."

He scratched the back of his head with a bored expression on his face. "Well, that's what you get when you order from an Italian restaurant masquerading as an Italian restaurant."

"So what happened to all the previous soul-searching and trips down nostalgia lane? You were on the path to rediscovering yourself. Maybe even reflecting on the past trauma in a different light. And I have to admit, I did enjoy reading your entries."

"How perverse."

"Tut, tut," Lani muttered in a mix of contempt and amusement. Her green eyes suddenly lit up as they settled on a random page. "Ah, now what do we have here?"

"What? Where?"

"Here." She turned the book around so that he could see. "A series of names. All lined with dashes except for one."

"Shit." He remembered when that moment of inspiration had dawned on him on a boring afternoon watching dog-food infomercials. "Gimme that. It's nothing."

Unfortunately, Lani had already snatched the seemingly innocuous piece of paper, dodging his hands as they made a grab for it. Wielding it like a carrot to a rabbit, she smiled that sly, innocent smile of hers.

"So who's Ami?"

"No one."

"And Suki?"

"Ditto."

"What about Jem?"

"Nothing."

"Christie?"

"Nobody."

"So this leaves - " she squinted at the last name on the list. "Julia. The only one which remains unmarked. Why's that so?"

He paused before exhaling loudly. "It's just one of those random things. I listed the names of a few women whom I once... shared something with."

"Were these relationships on a strictly physical level?"

"You mean like... messin' around?"

"If you'd like to put it that way, yes."

"Well... it's complicated."

"I see. Then you know what they say," Lani jabbed at the first name with the blunt end of her Biro pen. "Begin at the beginning and end at the end. Care to tell me about Ms. Ami here?"

"Ami?" Hwoarang wondered if he shouldn't cringe at the memory of the childlike Japanese girl he'd met at roadside cafe on his first tour, right after he'd left his hometown. "She had straight jet-black hair, about below shoulder-length, streaked with a different fluorescent color each week. The first time I met her, it was red. Pretty small, petite, pale almost milky white in complexion, dark eyes. In short, the epitome of Asian cuteness."

"I think the Japanese have a word to coin things like that..."

"Yeah, 'kawaii'." He shot the foreign word from the tip of his tongue like an especially distasteful bite of dessert. "Even I found her adorable, she was _that _disgustingly cute. Girls like her made men feel special about themselves. The strong, mighty protector of the weak and innocent princess. I'll bet you every single guy out there fantasizes about something along those lines whether they want to be a modern knight in shining armor on a pimped out bike or a long-haired samurai with nothing but honor to his name.

"I admit, she had great timing. She came along when I needed to remind myself that I was supposed to be the image that I was trying to project to the world; the tough guy with a guitar but a brooding poet behind the scenes. Remind you of anything?"

"Wait a moment," she brooded before finally answering. "A sort of... version of an ideal teenage romance novel? The sweet, innocent heroine saving the dark, tormented hero from succumbing to his deep, dark insecurities?"

"Close. Except that unlike those fictional emo boys, I don't wear my past on a shirt advertising that I 'came from a broken home' and yada yada. And Ami Yukishiro was definitely no heroine. Just a sheltered little girl looking for some adventure in her saccharine sweet life. The preppy college grads from the local universities no longer held her interest for more than a couple of hours, so who does Little Red turn to for some fun?"

He gestured to himself with a sarcastic shrug of his shoulders. "The Big Bad Wolf."

"She used you."

"True. To be fair though, I did the same to her. She was nothing but a toy, a doll that I wanted to play with because she was practically begging for it. And you know how kids treat their toys. For a short while, your whole world revolves around them. You're curious so you want to get as much as you possibly can from it."

"Harsh."

"Harsh? Jeez, I just came up with another way to put it. Ami -" he rolled his tongue around his mouth, wiping off her artificial strawberry-flavored taste. "Ami was a piece of pink bubble-gum. Chewed it, savored it for a while, spat it out."

"That was the end of that?"

"Oh yeah."

"Right..." Lani glanced up at him from her chair, appearing slightly concerned. "Hwoarang, with all the acid you've spewed about one bad affair, I wonder if it would hurt you more to talk about the rest."

The redhead locked his fingers together behind his head and bent over slightly in his sitting position so that his elbows almost touched his knees. "Actually, I think it would make me feel better. Much better."

"... Are you sure?"

"Yeah... it's about time I got this off my chest anyway. And they all weren't bad experiences."

"Could you tell me about the good ones then?"

"I'd have to go through Suki and Jem first."

"As you wish."

"Okay," The hands unclasped themselves and settled down on his knees. "... Suki. Korean. As I recall, her given name was Soo-Chin. She called herself 'Suki' because she despised tradition. I had no problems with that, it was a turn-on. If Ami was, say, a fluffy, pink bubble-gum pop princess, Suki was this loud, raucous, spunky punk chick who'd pour drinks on girls like that. Kinda like me."

"I can imagine." Lani grimaced.

"I bet... she had nice hair. Short and wispy with her fringe covering one eye."

"So what happened? You would've thought that birds of a feather would flock together."

"I know but..." Hwoarang struggled for the right analogy. "... we were like two birds of prey. She was a falcon, they called me a hawk. It's only natural that they try to kill each other one day."

"Now you're really worrying me."

"Relax, I didn't mean that literally. When you fight fire with fire, you end up burning down the whole house. We were too alike to get along. The same strengths, the same faults. I got so sick of the arguing that I just upped and left her one night. Plus, there was Sam - "

"Usurped from your place by another man?"

He cleared his throat and smiled grimly. "'Sam' as in 'Samantha'."

"Ohhh."

"You couldn't have put better. Suki broke the news to me a few weeks after I left her. I kept a straight face, we went our separate ways and then I went home and laughed my damn ass off."

A brief chuckle escaped his shrink before she immediately switched to her professional mode to compensate for her lapse in demeanor. "Moving on..."

"... Jem..."

"Yes."

"Now _that's _a story."

"Was she that bad? Or good?"

"I don't know, trust me on that. I was too damn depressed to care..."

A high-pitched beep alerted both of them to the red flash of light blinking on the intercom placed on Lani's desk. The dark-haired woman stared at it for a few seconds before standing up , walking over to the machine, and pressing a button.

"Yes?"

"Dr. Novoselic? There's a patient out here who wants to see you. He says it's very urgent."

"I'm in the middle of a session, Kate."

"I know, I'm sorry but he keeps on... he's very persistent..."

"Alright then, I'll be there."

She turned to Hwoarang. "Sorry about that. Give me about ten minutes."

"No probs."

He watched her heels click across the floor and out through the door. And then he tried to remember Jem. Blond, blue-eyed Jem. Pale-faced, mysterious Jem, her light freckles dotting her hollow cheeks and twiggy arms. He mentally traced his footsteps back to a nightclub in the midst of a smoky, neon-lit city. The strobe lights flickered and faded lending the atmosphere a surrealistic air. In dark corners, lithe young party-goers traded addictions and fake love... white powdered surfaces... decaying innocence and hope...

He blinked and Lani was back.

"What took you so long?"

"He _was_ very persistent."

She resumed her seat before him. "So... about Jem. How long did this one last?"

"All of one night."

"Woah."

"Yeah. I was stoned enough not to know what I was thinking but not enough to numb the rest of my senses. I saw her dancing there, in this club, long blond hair, blue eyes which seemed to glow in the dark. So I sidled up next to her and stayed there. She didn't seem to care. I saw the traces of powder on her upper lip near her nostrils. She was... so fragile looking...

"She whispered her name in my ear. Jem, just Jem, nothing else. I think I must have told her mine as well, I'm not sure. Things got a little blurry after that. I could sense that she was in as much pain as I was. We had that silent agreement. We'd give each other the illusion of what we'd missed out on. One night only, no strings attached."

"Strange as to how you bring her to mind from all the other one night stands you've accumulated."

"I guess it was what we had in common that counted. We both felt bad for each other., we both sought comfort. I never saw her again."

A silence fell over them. Three dashed names off the list, two more to go. One with a thick line across its form, the other intact.

"Christie." Lani interrupted. "Tell me what was she like."

Hwoarang sighed. "The most beautiful creature I've ever laid eyes on."

"... That's not an exaggeration."

"Nope. She was the living, breathing definition of that word. In all ways possible. Sweet, smart, independent, kind, loving, funny, everything. She was a dancer and she could bend that body of hers in any way she needed to - "

"To put it unambiguously, the sex was mind-blowing."

"... Yes."

"You know what I'm going to ask you now..."

"What happened?"

She nodded.

He ran his free hands through his hair, trying to come up with the most logical solution to the question posed to him. Finally, he gave up and decided to go with the only answer he could think of.

"I didn't love her. Not as much as I should have."

That shouldn't have felt so bad yet it did. "I loved Christie the same way I'd love a friend or a sister. It began to border on something like... incestuous. I couldn't go on with it so we just parted amicably. I wished her the best and I meant it."

Lani averted her gaze from him back to the last name on the list. "The way I see it, the names are placed in acsending order of how much they meant to you. Out of the ones with the dashes across them, Ami is the one you most want to forget and Christie affected you most. But Julia remains clean, untouched, so... does this mean that she transcends any of these girls for that coveted space in your heart?"

He could have clapped for her remarkable ingenuity but he didn't feel like it. He chose to nod silently.

"I'm curious, Hwoarang... what was she like?"

"No angel, that's for sure. Almost as stubborn as me. And when she got _really _pissed, she could flare up worse than Suki. Julia was... is... a contradiction. She's cynical, jaded yet still so hopeful and naïve that she melts even me. She could be cruelly sarcastic one moment and then soft and sweet the next. Aloof, sensitive, shy, bold, conservative, free spirited,... sometimes, she just confused the hell outta me.

"But... that's the way she is. Just when I thought I'd gotten away with my performance, she'd pull back the curtains and see right through my masks. That's what made her different. She had that heart of pure gold too. She'd never turn down a friend in need. And that was her worst fault too. She never placed herself first or before anyone else."

"Was? Is? You continue to refer to her in two different contexts; the past and the present."

"I... just don't know anymore, Lani. That's what scares me."

* * *

4 years ago

It was only in large crowds that Julia became painfully aware of her inability to fit in. The huge swarms of people bumping into her and brushing past her didn't do much to comfort her either. As she'd confessed on many an occasion, nightclubs and bars weren't her thing. To be more precise, they filled her with the most nightmarish sense of claustrophobia. There was just so much shallowness that she could take at a time...

"Oh my God, isn't he just gorgeous?"

"Tell me about it."

She winced. At events like this, she preferred the male spectators. Along with a scanty fraction of the female crowd, they were here because they honestly appreciated the music and the talent behind it. As for the rest... they'd probably give up their right arm for a shot with her friend, the fiery haired singer with the roguish eyes and perfectly toned body. Pity as to how they often overlooked the person behind the good looks. Hwoarang could be _such _an asshole on a bad day. She would have used a stronger word but the guitars drowned out her thoughts.

"_I've been running for too long_

_Stayed only until the thunder struck..."_

A bitch, yes, Hwoarang could be a first-class bitch if he felt like it. She smiled behind her hand as she watched him set the stage aglow with his presence. When he didn't have to turn on the charm he could whine, sulk, and throw petty tantrums that could put a toddler to shame. Not that he _was_ such a bad guy. Maybe not really a sweetheart but he was always fun to be with. He was... a lot of good things. And all those little things combined made him a good person. She'd told him that once and then he'd brushed it off with a stifled sigh and a ready-made wisecrack.

"_I won't break, I'll be stronger_

_For a new day ahead of me_

_It's waiting to be seized..."_

"Wonder what it'd take to get his number?"

Julia smirked. Tough luck for that silly ditz, she'd already beaten her to it. The prized cell number lay in her phone as well her own memory, the former being comfortingly snug in her jean pocket. She turned to get a glimpse of the girl who'd uttered that phrase.

Not bad. Long, auburn hair in a high ponytail, peaches-and-cream skin tone, straight, firm features, well endowed in the bosom department. Decked out in a creamy silk blouse, black flared skirt, and matching heels. With a twinge of embarrassment, Julia took note of her own simple outfit. The red cotton sleeveless tunic was one of favorites and the new belt did accentuate her waist nicely, but maybe she shouldn't have worn the light brown suede boots... and maybe she could have experimented with her hair for a change... left it loose instead of in her usual braid.

She stopped herself at that point. Now she was obsessing over it. Looks were only material, she reminded herself, she was here to show her support for Hwoarang and that was what was most important for the time being...

Her finger twirled itself around a stray dark brown lock strand self-consciously...

He was facing towards her part of the room. Their eyes met for a second. He smiled... and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

Either someone had spiked the drinks or something was very wrong with her tonight. It had been happening far too often lately for her liking. The topic itself was too dangerous for her to pursue with the aid of her girl friends or her mother. Therefore, she'd turned to the least confrontational source of guidance... the latest edition of 'Girls' Life' magazine. Page 30, 'More than Just Friends?'.

Fortunately, according to the self-proclaimed 'experts' in the field of teenage drama, developing a small crush on your guy friend wasn't totally abnormal. Most likely, it would fade away all in good time, and in a few months at most, she'd wonder what she'd ever seen in him and laugh about it to herself. No big deal...

At least, that's what she hoped it was.

"_I won't delay it any longer_

_I'm gonna seize the day..."_

She met him backstage after the gig which wasn't an easy feat considering the number of rabid fangirls and admirers she'd had to maneuver around. When she finally reached him, he seemed wholly and reasonably exhausted. The sweat he'd worked up on stage under the harsh spotlights had dampened the underarm areas of his shirt and the strands of loose red hair framing his flushed face. He sat hunched over in his chair, appearing anything but lively or fun.

She couldn't help but wonder why she'd blushed when he'd seen her in the crowd.

He looked up at her and smiled tiredly.

"Hey, Jules. Long night but definitely worth the effort. What did you think?"

Maybe it _was_ something in the drinks, maybe it was the state of her fluctuating hormones, or even the fact that he looked positively _adorable_ when he was tired and sleepy. Whichever reason, she'd flung it aside and surprised him with an impulsive, on-the-spot hug.

His arms hung limb at his sides. Most likely from shock, she deduced later. However, that still didn't stop her from placing a half-scared, half-sure kiss on his reddening cheek.

And then it hit her.

"I guess... I … I'll meet you outside."

She bowed her scarlet face and left.

* * *

"_I don't know what I was thinking when I did that. For once in my life, I'd acted on a whim and I instantly regretted it. You wouldn't be wrong if you guessed that was the reason I... wasn't myself around you for a few days. But you looked so cute that I couldn't help it. Why'd you have to look so cute, Hwoarang?"_


	10. 10

**No, I'm not dead... sorry, haters. And yes, the tenth chapter is indeed called '10'. Hope the switch to first person POV doesn't confuse you.**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Tekken or any of the characters depicted.**

* * *

**#10**

No matter how hard I try or how fast I run, I can't get away from them. Their voices stretch and lengthen like afternoon shadows, pulling at the strands of my hair and slashing their long, long nails down my back. It's so cold and I can't see anything at all. I just keep on running and then walking if I do manage to shake them off. It's really no matter, they always catch up with me eventually.

The world is so... black. I keep on moving, not knowing where I'm going or how I'm getting there. As long as I tread flat, solid ground, I know I'm safe from falling. I hear nothing... except for the echoes of my own footfalls. They sound... so small. Tiny even. Pit... pat... pit... pat... almost as if I were a child lost in a dark and hollow cathedral. I'm walking in a shadow of emptiness within a dead world, slick wet miasma sliding down my bare arms and into my dress, drenching it in coldness. A moment later, it's dry until the next wave of fear washes over me.

They say that true courage was to fight your fears until you won the battle or died trying. I have achieved neither. All I know is that I'm so scared that I'm blind and deaf to my own beating heart and that I keep on bursting into tears every once in a while. They always told me that I was strong and how much they envied my patience. And here I am, weak and helpless as a baby, running away from my demons instead of confronting them like I should. It's so cold... it chills everything inside of me... the veins in my wrist... the skin under my nails... the tips of my eyelashes... everything is so cold...

Sometimes, I cry out for help. Nobody hears me, nobody sees me. Maybe nobody even remembers me or misses me enough to care that I'm gone. When it all gets too heavy to bear, I start sobbing for want of everything I took for granted. In my mind, I see my name fading out from their memories, the flower that was me wilting to nothing but dirty pale brown petals because they don't care that I'm dying inside. Nobody knows, nobody cares... there was never a moment when I needed a friend so much as I do now.

It's so cold. So, so cold...

I look up and I see black. I look down and I see black. Endless, endless darkness. Voices in my head flicker through the black like flames piercing through. Familiar, friendly voices which I remember...

"_See ya..."_

"_... wake up, hon... it's time to go..."_

"_Hey!"_

"_... Jules... I..."_

I don't know if I've been here for days, months, or maybe years. I recall nothing of the beginning of this end or the end of what could have been a beginning. I have no sense of my solid, earthly body... I just feel lost and lonely like I once was as a little girl...

Time wiles away, drop after drop. I lie awake, think, and then get up and try again.

I think of ten things which make me happy. Ten little things which keep me alive. Ten things which I can barely recall.

I slow down. The running steadies to walking as I pick up the stray threads of dreams, nightmares, and things that I shouldn't be carrying within me but I am. Then I stop because I'm so tired... lie down... and curl into myself. I close my eyes and begin to remember those ten things. Not all of them, just a few. The ones which died long ago... the memories which I laid to rest as soon as my innocence ceased to breathe.

When I was barely old enough, my mother would sleep by my side every time that I'd fall ill. I was a tiny, spindly thing with twigs for limbs and toothpicks for fingers, not at all cute or the least bit adorable. But she'd always be there, right next to me, at my most vulnerable moments. I remember the heat from the palm of her hand... it seemed to glow through my skin with the slightest touch, whenever she stroked my forehead, fondled my hair, kissed me goodnight. To a sick, fever-ridden child like me, it was as if... Heaven was smiling down on me gently and forgiving me for all my selfish follies...

I used to tell her many things when the fever reached its pitch. I used to twist her name into whispers of 'Mum? Mommy? Mom-Pom?'. And I used to ramble on and on about fairy tales with too many characters or stories with no end in sight. But she'd _still _listen because she _loved _me...

And that was what kept me going. I fought back every single virus that attacked my system because... I wanted to spend some more time with her... the only one who didn't care that I was different, sad, or weak. The mother whose womb never nurtured me but whose heart always had a place for me no matter how far I ran or how hard I pushed her away. The only type of love worthy of the name because it was unconditional.

Those long lost memories are seeping over me now like a flowing river. Each molecule of each particle of the water makes each cell of my skin burn and tremble with a longing that I can't even begin to define. Summer rains, the first snowfall of winter, autumn leaves breaking off from their dry stalks and falling into a cloudy pond... two, three, four. Simple sweet scenes that mean millions to me yet nothing to anyone else.

I've caught four memories in my net so far... six more to go...

Perhaps this is the fifth one. Throwing pebbles into a fish pond. The goldfish were this soda-pop orange color with mottled brown spots on them... really ugly, I guess. I used to throw these little grey pebbles at them so that they'd swim off in shock. Funny as it was, what I most enjoyed were the ripples the stones made across the once still, crystal-clear water. I liked that they were round, soft but yet so... firm, strong... and everlasting. Everlasting like a fading memory, footprints in the sand you stepped on. Or maybe more like a photograph... a memento of a past time etched into the core of your heart.

Now that I dwell on it, I'm more of a fish than a human. Forever banished to the depths below the surface where no one dares dives into. Just me, all alone as I am at this moment, gazing wistfully at the ripples spreading out over me...

A sincere 'Hello' and 'Great job!'. Those are six and seven. The older I got, the less I got to hear them. Whether it was me again or them, I don't want to know. In the end, there are only three people I could believe in if they smiled and said those words.

The eighth thing... is something that surprises even me as it rushes back to my head.

It was a cold night complete with snow, ice, hail, and everything else I hate about winter. Snowflakes are one thing, a snowstorm is another. The wind was a monster of its own making, howling, wailing, clawing and rapping its long icy knuckles against the frozen glass in the windows. The lights had blown out so that made light a scarce entity. What the eighth thing should have been was the warmth which I fed on from beneath a sea of blankets. In a way, it was. I _was_ safe and warm on that night.

But not alone.

My love lay asleep by my side with his arms around me, peaceful and serene for the first time in ages. The crimson of his hair glowed sleek silver in the pale light. I lifted my hand and let it wander over his skin. Velvet... like moonshine. I must have been dreaming... or was I? Am I dreaming now? Is this all just a bad dream? When will it end? When can I see him again?

The ninth thing I remember is my hand, trembling and unsure. I remember a mourning weeping willow, white roses against a cold granite gravestone, and the smell of freshly cut grass. I remember a tall figure in black, quivering like a reed in the wind. I remember my trembling, unsure hand slipping into another. I remember suppressed sorrow and withdrawn tears. I remember sensing the beginning of an end.

I still remember my hand in his. Shivering in fear against what lay ahead. But I had his hand in mine so I thought that we'd be okay...

_'It'll be okay, Hwoarang... right?'_

_'… I don't know...'_

But he held my hand and I thought we'd be fine after all...

Sometimes, I wonder...

One night, it was pouring with rain. The streets were flooded with water, the day was blackened to an ashen, starless sky. The thunder roared on and on whilst those wiser than us took cover. I didn't need to cry, the clouds did it for me. He stood outside and let the rain pelt him until he was drenched to the bone. I called out... he looked away. Water, water everywhere, soaking my hair, blinding my eyes, lashing my arms and throat until I felt nothing except him and his kiss. Our fate was sealed, the writing was on the wall, bleak and bare before my eyes.

I didn't need to scream my agony, the thunder and wind did it for me...

That was the tenth thing flying by.

Has it been days, months, years since anyone's thought of me? Am I that unimportant? Am I so insignificant? When will the time come when I can see them again? Especially... I... I wanted to spend more time with _you. _Could I dare think that you want to be with me too?

Maybe... maybe... if I try hard enough, I could save you. I'll find my way back to you like I always have and you won't have to worry about where I go afterwards. I'll be me... that tiny presence that watches over you and guides you home.

And nothing, not even _they _can stop me.

As I collapse in weariness, I hear them coming for me. I feel their breath on my back and hear their malicious cackles scorching my ears. Tendrils of pain and sorrow creep upwards from my feet to the rest of my body. They coil around my neck, strangling my cries, and pricking my skin. Pain, red-hot and mind-numbing, swallows me down and fills my lungs with its filth. The first to escape before me is a tear...

"_Wait for me... I'll be there for you... I promise."_

I close my eyes and wait for it to end.

* * *

**I would like to thank the following:**

**A friend – you know who are. Thanks for this quote: "The only type of love worthy of the name is unconditional."**

**Evanescence – for providing some great mood music. If you squint, you can see traces of 'Missing' and 'Anywhere'.**

**Anyone who reads this – for being so patient and putting up with my crap. I love you guys.**


	11. Gardenia

**Without further ado... italics = memories.**

**Disclaimer:**** I don't own Tekken or any of its characters depicted here except for the OCs.**

* * *

**#11. Gardenia**

**A year ago**

The toxic white clouds engulfed his eyelids and ears until they were both spewing warm fluids down his neck, shoulders, and arms. This didn't bother him too much... no, not at all, not while his whole body scorched and melded into his blood, staining it red, darkening to a blotchy shade of purple as it dried. Perhaps this was what incineration felt like, to see your bones pop out right in front of you and then get bleached to a chalky white because of the acid. The fumes absorbed more colors into their bulk and began to stream out via ribbons of electric blue, neon yellow, lightning red, lime green, and fluorescent purple streaks, never-ending streaks, slicing him to shreds, dissipating the shreds to particles, scattering the particles to the inky black sky...

The colors were stunned to white stars...

And he blinked as he lay flat on the damp concrete gazing up at the early morning sky.

The smoking roll of paper and white powder burnt his hand, bringing him back to reality. The white clouds escaping his cracked lips intertwined with the rest of the dreary background, blinding him further to his own downfall. Tonight had been a series of first times and this little experiment was only one among others. If it went wrong, he had nothing worth much to lose. If it all turned out well, he had nothing more to gain... so he thought...

Repress, _remember_, release, and _forget_...

He threw his head back and cackled miserably.

* * *

The smoking roll of paper was back between his fingers, ready to a burn a hole in his skull. The echoes of a promise dimmed and dimmed until they were forgotten altogether. So now the question remained... to break down to a spasming mess of limbs, rolling eyes, and paranoia-seeped fantasies or do the same whilst still alert and sober. Four weeks and two days since he'd last had a drag, too long since he'd been sober, too late now that he'd come this far.

The paper cigarette glowed like an evil eye in the dark.

He'd better get rid of it now while he still had a choice... then again, he didn't. His fingers shook too much, rendering them out of control from the toxicity at hand. He could feel heat, red and hot, itching in his veins for a taste of the old smoky odor of an oasis in some place in his head.

Light up, light up, they sing to him.

Alright then...

Repress...

Release...

… Relapse...

The smoke felt like warm breath flooding into his lungs, so much that he could barely breathe. Within seconds, he was set aflame and adrift into open air, free-falling down to an end which lay nowhere within his sight. He opened his eyes to find themselves watering... just like the first time. Nothing but blurred strands of his own fiery red locks set against a backdrop of furiously shining whiteness. He could taste a powdery liquid on his tongue and the roof of his mouth as the eerie whiteness greeted him with a kiss he knew all too well. A tinny buzzing static resonated around him, shaking his lifeless body awake, soothing him to sleep, slipping and sliding into his head, violating his thoughts, raping his faint voice until it ceased to be heard above the echoing din.

_M-m-m-mine-m-m-m-mine-m-m-m-mine-m-m-Mine-m-m-Mine-M-M-MINE!-M-M-MINE!_

Breathe in, breathe out, Lani had told him, he recalled. Relax, strike when the time is right, when the iron is hot, Baek had instructed. Their voices interspersed so that he couldn't distinguish her from him. And then he heard Kim's level voice asking him about the stormy weather in March and Han going on about something to do with paper planes and magnifying glasses. 'Hn' was all he could make out from J...

They all combined into a whirling tornado of thoughts that ran through his mind, none of them really making any sense whatsoever. Each stream of loose sand winding into each other so they entered his eyes, noise, and mouth.

Empty... nothing... he was nothing...

In an instant, the voices exploded to oblivion without as much as whisper being left behind in the chaos. The din came to an abrupt halt...

He opened his eyes and gazed at the heavy grey clouds above him as he lay flat on his back amidst wavy stalks of wet green grass. Light drops immediately alighted on his parched lips. With his head feeling blank and empty, he sat up. The grass stretched on as far as the eyes could see. Flowers blossomed here in the field, white ones mostly... lilies, oleander, and gardenia... his mother had started collecting them when he...

White. White means purity... innocence, even...

The serenity of the place was shattered in an instant when he caught sight of her long, dark brown hair strewn across the grass.

She lay face down on the ground, soaked hair loose and concealing her face, limbs motionless at her sides... he recognized the familiar grey dress as he crawled desperately to her limp form. His fingers soon touched wet silky locks and his hands followed suit until he was able to grasp her tight in his arms.

"Ju - "

He blinked. The woman he held now had hair as black as his once was and wore a pattern that was light pink with a cherry-blossom motif. The long-locked tears behind his eyes started to creep out, one by one...

"Mama?"

Julia sighed but didn't wake up. He shook her gently, cradling her carefully lest he hurt her more than she'd already been.

"Jules..."

"Hwoarang?"

His mother peered up at him through long thick lashes.

"Wha -?"

"It's not good to stay out in the rain for too long, Hwoarang." she whispered. "Go back inside now or you'll get sick... be a good boy..."

"Mama..."

The rain had begun to pour harder and harder. So hard that that the flowers around him appeared as if they were drowning in the oceans of puddles that were now being formed. Almost immediately, they were submerged beneath the rapidly rising water. Julia finally opened her eyes.

"Hwo..."

"I thought I lost you."

"No... not yet..."

"_Mama? I don't get it..."_

"Julia..."

"_What happened to the princess after she pricked her finger on the spinny wheel?"_

"Why won't the rain stop?"

"_It's called a 'spinning' wheel, Hwoarang."_

"If it doesn't stop, we might drown..."

"_So... what happened to her?"_

"_She fell asleep... for a hundred years..."_

"Just go, Hwoarang."

"Not without you."

She was getting heavier to lift with the weight of the water soaked up by her clothes. Startled, he took note of the delicate white petals skimming and bobbing amidst the multiple ripples set off by the incoming rain. There was that scent in the air as well... a simpering, poisonous but sweet smell of jasmine-laced hair, bold and audacious at the same time, seeping into every pore on their skin, draining them of color... no way out...

"_M-m-m-mine-m-m-m-mine -"_

"_How's the water out there, Rang?"_

The cold felt like heat... passionate and all-consuming... scorchingly violent like absinthe...

"_So if you point the glass, like, right there, it could burn a fuckin' hole right through the paper when it's in the air! Siiicck, man!"_

"_Hwoarang... shut up... and gimme back my smoke."_

He pulled her closer to him, shivering so much that his jaw hurt.

"_Mama has a headache, Hwoarang... go play by yourself..."_

The first shard of ice plunged straight into the waves sending fat drops of water soaring to the stormy sky before falling straight back down to their source. A second and a third followed, not too far away from them... hail... the rain had frozen to hail...

"_Sure you're alright, mate? Anything I could help with?"_

"_Is there anything I can do? Anything?"_

"No… there's nothing anyone can do…"

He held her closer as he drowned.

* * *

As if the lightning wasn't bad enough, it had started to pour in buckets. Bad night to be out in heels, Lani mused in the cozy dryness of her car. In a couple of minutes, she'd be home, safe and dry, ready to settle down with dinner, a good book and hopefully, some quality music. All they played on the radio stations were the usual gangsta rap and some pathetic excuses for punk rock involving thirty year old guys in t-shirts and cut-offs. After much twisting of knobs and pressing of buttons, she finally settled on the weather station predicting heavy storms ahead so stay inside and don't do anything that you'll regret later, kiddies.

A slight buzzing alerted her to… either the revelation that she'd been transformed into a human lightning conductor thanks to genetic abnormalities in her DNA… or just her cell-phone in her trouser pocket.

"Hello?"

The voice that replied was male, calm yet tensed at the same time. A second later, her drooping eyelids shot up. With one foot on the accelerator, she maneuvered through roads flooded with rain and sewer water, almost violating countless rules and regulations included in the Layman's Guide to Driving in Extremely Screwed Situations. When the abysmally cheerful voice of the radio jockey began to grate on her nerves, she punched the knob into quiet submission. She was really no better than she'd been a few years ago as a first year psych student, eager to help and burning with the desire to help those poor misunderstood souls. A little more jaded and cautious behind the specs but still the same.

She flung open the door as soon as she managed to squeeze into a space in the crowded parking lot of the hospital. Right on cue, her left high heel snapped on running through watery tarmac and into the main entrance. She bit her lip to keep herself from yelling out a word which her mother had told her good little girls never used. Without further guidance from the hassled receptionist behind the sanitized green desk, she eventually found herself at Room 204, Ward 2B. Now, in the presence of four men only one of whom she knew at all, it seemed quite justifiable for her to feel less than adequate with her shoes in one hand and the other trying to hold together a split seam in her stocking.

Nonetheless, she addressed her wayward patient first. "Hwoarang, are you okay?"

He lifted his head up from where he was sitting hunched over on the bed and just glared at her with a blankness that spoke volumes more than anger. Physically, he was a mess of bedraggled hair and pallid blotchy skin. A pristine white gauze band-aid wound around his head was tainted by a sharp red trickle of blood that had fought its way from the cut on his right temple into the material. The other three men in the room gazed at her with expressions varying from suspicion to apathy.

"Who was it that called me?"

A dark-haired man in the corner unfolded his arms and nodded in reply. "J."

"Lani."

He silently refused to accept her hand in making her acquaintance, instead choosing to nod solemnly again as his eyes scanned her for hidden motives. She guessed him to be one of those 'can't-trust-these-damned-shrinks' type.

"Tell me everything that happened."

J motioned to his bleary-eyed friend on the bed before answering succinctly. "Got high on a drag. Hit his head on the edge of the bathroom sink. Collapsed, then we got him here."

"I see…"

A younger man, possibly in his late teens, with a bleached blond mohawk swore tiredly under his breath and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Another with spiked dark-brown hair just stood with his back towards them, facing the window and watching the droplets slide down before collapsing into tiny puddles at the base of the ledge. An awkward silence ensued, highlighted by the gazes aimed at different places on the walls and floor of the cramped room. Each unwilling to face the others for fear that they accidently expose their own vulnerabilities to the world. Now was not a time for breakdowns, not in the aftermath of another's weakness.

When one fell, it was vital to make sure the others wouldn't collapse in its wake.

"Ahem."

A tall, heavyset doctor in a starched white coat entered. Lani felt him discreetly scrutinize her flustered youthful appearance as he peered over his notes at Hwoarang who refused to even acknowledge his appearance. Ignoring this, he spoke, "And how are we doing now?"

Hwoarang glared, J stared, Lani frowned. General practitioners these days…

"Are you still feeling dizzy after the fall? Any nausea?"

She fought the urge to roll her green eyes at him as she observed how he held up four fingers for Hwoarang to count. As she predicted, he received no answer from the brooding redhead. Further questioning yielded the same result… a stubborn silence. Frustrated, the doctor beckoned her to follow him outside. She obliged him reluctantly, feeling the wary stares on her retreating back.

Once they were out in the hall, nurses and visitors bustling past them, she inwardly cursed the heavens for bestowing her with her mother's short genes as she tilted her head upwards to meet her medical counterpart square in the eye.

"I've just been informed that a certain Dr. L. Novoselic is this… unfortunate boy's therapist."

"Good for you." she replied curtly.

"So I'm assuming that you _are _indeed," He sniffed and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. " – this Dr. L. Novoselic?"

"Yes."

"I'm Dr. Kurtt."

"My pleasure."

He seemed to be pleased with the present circumstances of their impromptu meeting and puffed out his cheeks in his conceit. "If you may, I'd rather skip the formalities and get to the bare facts of the matter."

Lani kept the cold edge in her voice intact. "Then please do so."

"We-ell, it's rather obvious that he's been smoking or at least inhaling some form of illegal substance. The blurred vision, bloodshot eyes and incoherent slurring in his speech when he was brought in all point to this. He's lucky that we have no actual physical evidence of this like say, a packet of white powder or similar…"

It was at this point that he chuckled grimly to himself. She cleared her throat, barely suppressing her anger.

"You were saying…"

"Ah… yes. Yes, even the testimony of his friend attests to that… he found a roll of paper containing some burnt powder."

"Then it's settled. When can he be discharged?"

"A few days, if all goes well… one more thing." He added as she turned to return to the room. Trying not to growl audibly, she faced him once more.

"Yes?"

"Have you examined him for signs of schizophrenia? I noticed that he would keep on mumbling to someone at his side. Someone obviously non-existent to everyone else, I think possibly his mother or at least someone by the name of Julie or somethi – "

Lani would have loved to enjoy imagining the shock on Kurtt's face as she slammed the door in his face. However, she barely had her hand on the knob when it was thrown open and hit her in the face on impact. The stars suddenly popping into her vision momentarily distracted her from a flash of red hair brushing past her on his way to the exit.

"Wha - ? Hwoarang!"

He didn't even bother to look behind him as he stormed through the corridor, upsetting a table of stainless steel medical equipment as well as a waste-paper basket set on the floor. Bumping into a nearby vending machine caused him to swear out loud in his native tongue, not caring that he was beginning to worry a few bystanders in his haste to leave as soon as possible. She immediately took off after him.

"Hwoa – "

"ENOUGH!!" He yelled out for everyone to hear. The sliding doors shut before she could reach out and latch onto his shirt to prevent him from running from his troubles again. When she had finally fought her way through the barrier and the people passing through, he was nowhere to be seen. The worry in the pit of her stomach soared to new heights as she scrambled barefoot through the slippery wet maze of cars and ambulances.

_No… don't go after _her _again._

A muffled shout caught her attention and she whipped past a motorcycle and minivan to investigate the source of the commotion. Slowing down, she paused to catch her breath and sigh with relief when it became apparent that J and the others had showed up in the nick of time to tackle their errant friend to the ground. Hwoarang lay beneath the huddle of bodies, lashing out and cursing all of them using a choice selection of expletives. The spiky haired man looked up at her for a second before wiping the blood of his freshly bleeding nose.

"One point for brotherly love, I guess."


	12. In A Good Mood

**Was reading 'Garden Spells' by Sarah Addison Allen and listening to 'Run' by Snow Patrol as well as 'Like You' by Evanescence. Good stuff, good inspiration. The lyrics in this chapter are definitely 100% mine so don't sue please.**

* * *

**#12. In A Good Mood**

If 'dark' was a person, Hwoarang would have definitely seen him in his reflection. Sometimes he wondered if the gods or whatever flounced around in the sky above did take pleasure in punishing him as they saw fit. If he were as immortal and mythical as Hercules, he'd have already journeyed to Mount Olympus and exacted his vengeance. But Hercules was a son of Zeus, thus a son of a god and Hwoarang was only an unfortunate incident staining his parents' pasts. An image of a bed crept into his mind, pillows knocked onto the carpet and sheets stained with foulness that bespoke a mistake… which had happened too early to reverse…

Yesterday had been the second worst day of his life.

The arguments he'd been a part of along with his tired and wary friends were still left unfinished, festering in leftover adrenalin and misery. Harsh words, slamming doors, accusations not too far from fact, he'd inflicted his own wounds and they'd countered to add to it. A hard truth was better than a gentle lie but that didn't make it hurt any less.

He strummed away, acoustic and bare. Humming to no particular tune. Sad and desolate, no alien substances to soften his thoughts.

"Hmm… hmm… hmm… hmm…"

This was his life. Or at least, the ragged tear-soaked pieces of it. He saw it as an empty house, bereft and weeping for want of warmth. It was grey and dismal with cobwebs lining blackened nooks and crannies. There were a few skeletons hidden as well. As he painted the drab picture, he poured his colors into the strings shuddering beneath his fingers. This wasn't a stage, there was no audience present to witness his lonely breakdown so he didn't have to ravage them as he was wont to do. The notes that rose from them sounded pathetically thin and weak compared to the scorching wails the world knew. It brought him back to the start, when he'd just begun learning to find his way around the guitar. The plain instrument had offered him some solace from home and he was forever thankful for that. Even his mother hadn't seemed to mind… perhaps she assumed that it would keep him from getting in his father's way.

She would occasionally slip inside his room whilst he practiced cross-legged on the floor. The cool marble relaxed him and he'd slide his fingers on it when he felt tired. He would pretend that he didn't notice her standing behind his desk all the while knowing that she knew his little game. After a few minutes, maybe half an hour, he'd feel her slim fingers sliding through his hair. He'd continue, pretending that he didn't care and then she would bend down and kiss the top of his head gently. With a soft sigh, she'd turn and walk away and he'd watch her as she left, trying to figure out what she'd come for. He'd never know now. He could've asked…

He stopped playing, instead clasping the wood and fiber-glass closer.

A few breaths later, the tensed muscles in his arms and back relaxed.

One thing he missed about winter was the nights. They were long and silent so that he could hear his heart beat. When the world lay dead and cold, he needed a reminder that he was alive like the steady rhythm of his heart pumping against his flattened palm on his chest. A woman's heart beat at a faster rate than a man's, was that why they seemed so different when they were the same? _That_, he noted, was a question that Julia would have asked on a lonely winter's night when they had nothing better to do than ask each other things that neither could answer.

Quite some time ago, he'd been caught off-guard by an overexcited young fan when she'd leapt from a nearby crowd and clung to his back as quick as a magnet on metal. He'd never caught as much as a glimpse of her because she'd been snatched away so fast. All he could remember of her was heated breath rushing down the back of his throat and a slight nudge of force where her elbows and fingers had dug into his sides. Her perfume had smelt spicy, evergreen like pine trees on fire. For a moment, he had felt good to know that someone had wanted him even if it was for a selfish, material, carnal purpose of having what no one else owned. A piece of his flesh, sweat-stained from rough shows and honed to perfection from gossip-fueled rumors of one night stands and toxic affairs.

Years before that, it had been him and another girl, both teenagers on the threshold of something new and unfamiliar. It had been him and her in a den, a log fire burning to keep the chill of November frost at bay. Their song was just like the one he was playing now, untouched and alive with a low flame. Just them alone, in a crystal ball of dim white light, looking out at the frozen streets lined with falling snowflakes. He held the guitar aloft in his arms as her head rested on his back. He played, played away into the night and she kept her songs in silence. Her hair smelt like thyme and basil. The cotton of her shirt had felt nice and soft under his touch. Occasionally, she'd lean forward and kiss him, anywhere, on his cheek, jaw, the side of his neck, wherever instinct told her. When he couldn't hold it in any longer, he laid her down on the warmed duvet, pulled the cotton shirt up and over her head and buried his face in the vast earthy strands of her hair. The song would continue without its one-man orchestra, the snow would keep on descending and the two of them lay awake, breathing in the essence of the other.

She'd thought that they would be together forever.

For him, there was no such thing as 'forever'. There was only a series of events, fortunate and unfortunate. His mind remained hollow, living and breathing in the fumes of the past. The desperate belief she harbored for a future that could be theirs worried him. It wasn't like anyone to view him as someone who could be trusted with a heart that wasn't his own. He himself was the last person he would ever trust with her.

The bond they shared kept him tied to her by means of wavering trust. He asked himself why had he even thought of taking what they had this far without warning her beforehand. To touch fire, you had to endure the burn. As he watched her sleep soundly in his arms that night, he knew that he couldn't put her through that. He would never forgive himself for causing her suffering. For once in his life, he willed himself to be both selfish and a martyr as he came to his decision.

He would break that bond.

The breaking point came with Master Baek's demise. It had been an inevitable day he'd dreaded. There always had to come a time where everyone he knew would disappear before he could have a chance to say goodbye. Things never were permanent in his world so he didn't believe in 'forever'. On that day, he'd stopped believing in destiny. He'd stopped wishing for better days and he never wanted to look back. The ground he stood on was nothing but dead like Baek, cold and lifeless, silent and still, an empty deceitful plotter who gave little and took whatever it could manage. Here below him lay one who had offered him guidance, away in a distant memory lay two had given back nothing but the scars they'd carved on him.

"_Hwoarang, you're not alright."_

"… _No, I…"_

"_Could I help?"_

"… _I…"_

"_You know… I'm still here. Does that help?"_

"_Jules…"_

"_I'll always be here for you."_

"_Julia… we have to talk."_

He didn't have to. She'd already realized.

Four little words had killed it all.

A week later, he'd bid her goodbye in the midst of the pouring rain. Using this as an excuse to pull the hood of his coat over his head, he nodded in an attempt to make things easier. She stood still, meek but steadfast and nodded back, not daring to speak. The worst part had been when he'd turned back and glanced at her fast shrinking form behind the road his bike took him down. A lonely figure wrapped in black and blue, one hand raised and waving in a frail show of courage.

That had been the worst day of Hwoarang's life.

His sight grew blurry from the recurring ache in his spirit but he still held tight to the guitar. Not even the streams of hot tears already trickling down his cheeks and off his chin stopped him. Lyrics were starting to sprout from the epiphany of sorts but he could barely reach out for a pen, much less jot them down before he forgot. It ached, ached so much, worse than before, more than anything…

He flung the dead instrument from his hands and sunk to the floor.

And he wept.

* * *

When he lifted his heavy eyelids open, it was already late in the morning. The wall clock revealed the time to be somewhere between half past eleven and noon. He had fallen asleep on the floor last night after that bout of sobbing had exhausted him to the core. The pain still echoed inside him, jarring him whenever the sunlight hit his face.

As he picked himself up and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he winced. Moving closer to the glass, he could see the damage wrought upon by his self-imposed denial. His light brown eyes were tinged with red at the corners and his hair was a matted mess plastered to his scalp. The words of someone he couldn't place a face on rang true in his ears.

"_Look at you! You're a fuckin' mess!"_

Drawing the curtains of his bedroom window shut, he leaned against the wall and pressed his cheek to the cool concrete. He remained like this for a while before he finally chose to focus his attention on the note scrawled in black ink on white lined paper taped to his door since last night.

_I've locked you inside here for the time being until you can pull yourself together. Don't bother trying to drown your sorrows in booze coz there isn't any. When you're feeling better, Lani would like you to call her. Do not, I repeat, __DO NOT__ try the windows. They've been bolted for your safety. You can hate on me later._

_J_

He shook his head. The urge to escape hadn't crossed his mind. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he picked up the guitar from its resting place and tried to pick up from where he'd left off. It seemed as easy as collecting water in a sieve… simpler than it seemed. He just had to find a way around it. Somehow.

"_Hey…"_

When thunder strikes, it illuminates surroundings in a flash that lasts only a second. Be careful, take your time, and observe quickly for time never stops. He began to whisper, part song and part chant, all melancholy.

"_You know I never meant to hurt you." _

Hush… grieve in peace.

"_Speak out for me_

_Just so I know you're somewhere._

_Cry so I know I'm not alone._

_Just call for me so I'll come._

_Hope keeps lying,_

_The dark keeps me searching,_

_And all I need is a beacon to show me the way._

_But where do I hide?_

_Where do I fall?_

_Where do I rest my troubled mind…"_

He strummed away, his audience lingering in the absence of light and a good mood.


	13. Excessive Chain

**#13 Excessive Chain**

"This is the last time."

Lani's green eyes scanned him for lies. "You do realize that this is easier said than done, do you?"

Hwoarang understood the weight of the words which he had just uttered. Whether or not his shoulders were able to bear it was something else. "I can only try. The rest is up to fate. Anyway, what've I got to lose?"

"You've already come this close to losing yourself to your demons."

"It's my life. I did this to myself and I'm going to be the one to fix myself."

"You can count me in as back-up."

The familiarity of those oft-repeated words made him grimace inwardly. There was some length of comfort he drew from them that was laced with pain. Even sympathy seemed to come with a price nowadays. "Lani… you know… you almost… kinda reminded of…"

"Julia."

The name dropped from her lips like a stone, cold and hard.

"Sorry… did _that _offend you?"

"No, it rather worries me."

He sighed. "I know you think I'm delusional – "

"I don't _think _that. It's quite apparent to anyone."

"Lani… haven't you ever entertained the concept of _you _actually being the delusional one?"

"I like your surprisingly high-brow use of language there but that's not the point."

"Wouldn't be surprising, considering that it's your job to look after crazies like me. After a couple of months on the job, I'd suspect that we'd sorta rub off on you. Don't you ever get that feeling?

"The lunatics-taking-over-the-asylum syndrome? I wouldn't be surprised if someone diagnosed all shrinks with that. You do have to lose a bit of yourself in order to gain an ounce more of your patient's trust. The only way to sympathize with what they're going through is to empathize with them."

"Does that work for everyone?"

"To be honest, not really. Usually, it hurts more when you're knee-deep in someone else's problems as opposed to just watching from the side-lines. That's probably why most people in this field opt for the clinical approach; diagnose, treat as prescribed and cure."

"And you?"

"I just try to help the best way I can." Her green eyes sparkled with amusement as she realized the irony of her statement. "How awkward. I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions."

"Well, whaddya know," He ran a hand through his hair in mock vanity. "Guess the ol' Hwoarang charisma is back. Always makes people do things they shouldn't."

"How terrifying. I _shudder_ to think of all the havoc you would have caused in your earlier years."

The smirk on his lips shriveled and died instantaneously. She noticed right away.

"Another day, another story?"

"Yeah… thanks, Lani."

"You're quite welcome, Hwoarang."

* * *

He'd lost count of the times he'd called J a 'fuckin' chimney' whenever the other man's incessant smoking habit got to him. What made it more annoying was that J would go ahead and light up anyway, not caring if he was poisoning his lungs or suffocating anyone within his range. One of the more irritating quirks that made up part of the enigmatic character. The rest was akin to a bag of puzzle pieces, all of which refused to fit together.

"Ever thought about death, J?"

Not even a flinch from him. "Occasionally."

"How would you want to end your life? If you'd just given up and had enough of all the shit you have to put up with."

"Don't get any ideas."

"I'm not looking for any. Trust me, a bit of angst is good for art. Love, sex, fame and morbidity are what drive better-than-your-average songwriter. Inspiration is all I need."

"You're gonna start over?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Look where it got you."

"I know that… but I want another shot."

"You're not ready for it."

"Gotcha."

J raised a dark eyebrow in scrutiny. The things that spouted from Hwoarang's mouth were of two kinds lately; profoundly disturbing or disturbingly profound. Not even one word could fly under his radar now without being carefully inspected for the encrypted musings of a troubled mind. That last one had hinted at a secret, uttered with an infuriatingly all-knowing grin and demanded a question in exchange for a decoded answer.

"What?" he finally ventured sullenly.

"You do care."

"Yes, I care that I have to be the one hauling your stoned ass from the streets to the stage where you're gonna make a complete fool of yourself, get yourself a bad name and then get so depressed that you'll be at square one again. In the long run, you're wasting my time."

"But I don't see you leaving me to go it alone out there either."

"…"

The smile that rose up the corners of the redhead's lips was different from the smirks that he used to adorn earlier. It was slightly sad, warm, older and wiser than Hwoarang's real age dictated.

"So… back to my question. If you had a choice, how would you end your life?"

"Take a gun to my head and pull the trigger."

A spurt of wispy grey smoke punctuated his opinion. That was final and the reasons were too obvious. It was quick, simple and the pain lasted less than a second. No matter how strong people were, or how much they pretended to be, they always wanted an easy way out of the messes they created. The nicotine in the cigarettes J smoked had numbed his blood long ago but even he wanted a painless death.

"Thanks anyway, J."

"… Don't mention it."

* * *

Hwoarang immediately went on the attack, hoping to overwhelm his green-skinned opponent before beating him to a bloody pulp. However, the creature had other plans. It leaped high up into the air, curled into a ball and spun towards him like a manic sprocket in a matter of seconds. Successfully caught unawares, Hwoarang found himself being pounded by a barrage of fists and feet strong enough to cripple an ordinary man. The impact knocked him flat on his back, right on a rough patch of the jungle floor. The monster lunged for him but missed as he managed to roll away from its stained ivory claws. He got up and slid into his stance, ready to aim a ki blast to level the damage done on both sides (mostly his).

The… 'thing' lurched forward.

He managed to send a glowing white ball into its path with a hoarse battle-cry.

_Yes._

It leaped… the blast missed it an inch.

_Oh… crap._

The creature took advantage of his gaping and spun towards him, landing more precisely aimed hits on him. Hwoarang retaliated with a series of spinning kicks which were all blocked and a grapple which was deflected by a shock of electricity released from its body. That was it, no holding back for him this time. He unleashed all his energy into a multitude of punch-and-kick combos which took his enemy by surprise. Satisfaction crept in as the blows he dealt yielded visible results. The monster was already yelping in pain. If he kept at it, he'd have this one in the bag…

Attack…

… block…

… leap…

… aim and strike…

… What?!

Perhaps the creature wasn't as dimwitted as it looked. Not by the way it grabbed him in mid-air and slammed him into a corner of their make-shift arena. Great, now it had him right where it wanted him… defenseless and open to attack. Which was what it set to do, vicious and with no mercy to spare…

He clenched his teeth and awaited the coup de grace… the blow which would put him out of his suffering… quick and easy…

"K.O!!" rang the announcement, a human voice dripping with fake cheer. His on-screen character slumped to the ground, screaming in agony. Next to him, Han was imitating his character's win pose, right down to the chest thumping and exaggerated grunting.

"Han…"

"Ooh, ooh – "

"It's only a video-game."

"Yeah, keep saying that to console yourself, loser."

"I still own your ass in real life, don't forget that."

The drummer cocked his head to the side and slapped his ear, as if attempting to clear it of dirt. "Okay, I got ya there. Something about a raspberry-flavored turtle humping the pink Energizer bunny?"

Hwoarang punched him playfully, but still hard enough to elicit a distinct "Ow!", on the arm.

"Wuss," he dubbed Han as the latter whined about an imaginary bruise. "That's nothing compared to what I usually give you."

"C'mon, whatever happened to picking on someone your own size? You said you used to take down guys as big as a fuckin' Range Rover!"

"No… I said they were as big as fuckin' Hummer SUVs."

"Whatever. I'm still a weak and defenseless dork you're supposed to defend."

"That…" Hwoarang struggled to come up with a less frumpy and old-fashioned substitute for the word 'ridiculous' as he rolled his eyes. "That was just… lame."

"Well, you are. You're the hero, I'm the sidekick. Didn't we already agree on that?"

"I feel anything but 'heroic' at the moment."

"Yeah, I guess… but you're gonna get back up and fight this. Right?"

He smiled wryly. "It's not like I have another option."

"Sure you do! You could have ended up wearing a strait-jacket in a padded cell or homeless on the street. Believe me, there are a _lot _of situations which you could be in right now. But you're not because you chose not to."

"I had a little help with that last bit."

"Which you chose instead of just throwing it away. Although you kinda went berserk that night after we tackled you in the car-park."

"Sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. What matters is that you're clean and you're gonna get better, right?"

"I hope."

"Great!" Han pointed his thumb upwards to show his approval. "See? That's the hero spirit I'm talking about! You're our leading man, our numero uno, head honcho, the Big Cheese – "

"Cheese?"

"We'd be nowhere without you! I mean, a band without a lead singer is like… like…" He started rummaging through his video-game collection, searching for the perfect simile. "Um… like… like… like Street Fighter without Ryu!"

"Even though he just got pawned by a certain someone's Blanka?" Hwoarang replied, testing the waters.

"He had an off-day. And plus, I am just that much of a gaming god, thank you very much."

"Heh, I'll get my back when we play Guitar Hero."

"You're on! After dinner, of course. I'm fuckin' starving." With that, he scooted off to the refrigerator leaving Hwoarang to whether the guy was really an idiot or just plain misunderstood. Misinterpreted even.

"Han?"

"Mmph?" He answered, mouth crammed with soda crackers.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, Han is just that amazing. Place that on repeat."

He swerved sideways to dodge the incoming airborne cushion.

* * *

It took a while but Hwoarang eventually found Kim by himself in a deserted studio, the brooding notes of an unplugged bass guitar filling in the empty spaces. Out of his three friends, the quiet spiky haired bassist was the docile bystander. The one who watched from the sidelines even when he was actually in the game. Unlike J's cool, almost intimidating, demeanor, Kim's silence was quite wistful, only taking a stand when he absolutely needed to. Maybe the guy had some issues, maybe that was just his nature…

Maybe he'd better ask him.

"Hey." He murmured, brushing the tips of his fingers against the black cotton of the other's shirt. Kim granted him a quick glance and a nod without breaking the melody beneath his hands. Hwoarang knew that look. It meant that no matter how many times he was going to be distracted, life was still not worth living without the music to keep him going. Hwoarang understood. At least that was one thing they could agree on. There wasn't much else he knew about Kim to disagree with.

"New riff?"

"Sort of. Just messin' around. What're you up to?"

"Nothing." Having just realized that he'd contradicted himself, he sat down and decided to amend that. "Well, actually, something… a lot of things. I felt that I owed you guys for sticking by me even when things got _really _fucked up. I haven't been myself lately and I just wanted to make it up to you."

"So…"

"I spent the whole day one-on-one with each of you. Talked with Lani, hung out with J, played video-games with Han, all the stuff I used to do back when we starting out. Speaking of which, I never got to do the same with you."

Kim smiled apologetically. "That's fine with me. You already knew J and Han for a year before I joined. It's normal, you guys should stick together."

"'Us guys' includes you too. Sometimes I wonder if you honestly want to be here."

"I do."

"C'mon, Kim. Apart from the basics, I don't think I know you as well as I know the others."

"Basics?"

"You prefer using an Ibanez SR600, your birthday's on the twenty fifth of June, and last time I checked, you were single, sane, no addictions or fetishes for feet or the occult. And that pretty much covers it."

"Ah," Kim chuckled softly. "I see what you mean."

"So, I want some details here! What's your favorite color, your ideal girlfriend, a band you'd give your right arm and leg to see performing live, what do you like doing in your free time and what're your parents like?"

"Um, okay, in that order. My favorite color is blue, I don't really have an 'ideal' girlfriend although Hikaru Utada comes close, I'd give a whole lot more than an arm or leg to see the Foo Fighters live in concert, I don't do a lot in my free time apart from this," He gestured to his guitar. "And my parents died in a car accident when I was two so I'm not that sure about what they were like."

All Hwoarang could say was "Oh, sorry" for what seemed like the billionth time that month to compensate for his foolishness.

"It's okay. I don't remember them anyway."

"Hm… my parents are gone too."

"Oh… so that puts us in the same boat."

"Yeah, who would've thought?"

"Mm-hm."

"You, out of all people. And you've been right here, _right beside me_ _on stage_, and neither of us knew."

"Things have a strange way of coming around, it seems."

"And you like the Foo Fighters too!"

"Uh-huh, you do too?"

"I'd place them below Metallica, Rise Against and The Prodigy but they kick ass as well."

"Cool."

The rhythm slowed down for a moment. Mellowed into a lighter shade.

"So… Utada, eh?"

A faint blush lit up Kim's face. "… Yeah."

"I'm surprised you're not an Ayu fan like the rest of the world."

"She's okay… just a little too bottle blonde for me. I like girls who keep their natural hair color."

"Ahem," Hwoarang fingered his own chemically-enhanced locks. "Some guys beg to differ."

"You're free to disagree."

"That I will. Thanks for agreeing on that."

"Anytime, anywhere."

Hwoarang could have sworn he felt a spark of competition there. It seemed that he was back on track.

* * *

_Hey Jules (if you're there),_

_Today seemed like a chain of apologies and thank you's. And I honestly meant them, nothing excessive. Finally, I've woken up to the fact that I know some awesome people in this world. Now if you were here with me, it'd be a perfect universe coz you're out of this world ;). Yeah, lame, I know. But I've said worse._

_Would it be completely out of line if I told you that I dream of you? Not lately anymore, but before that. You seemed… lost. Or at least resigned to being lost. Is everything alright with you? You don't keep in contact and you never answer your phone so is it me you're avoiding? This feels weird… me asking you the tough questions, the ones which I'm afraid of answering. These past few months have the worst of my life and that's not saying much. We've been through a lot and I've got so much to say to you._

_So why does this seem so hard?_

_I wanna kiss you._

_Because I never bothered to give you that last kiss goodbye. And if you _are _reading this then you're gonna shake your head and delete this because you're probably not missing me as much I'm missing you. Or could I be wrong?_

_There are a hundred, maybe a thousand things I'd like to say to you._

_So, I'll just say the truth behind them and leave out all the rest…_

_I want to see you again._

_Anytime you're ready, even in my dreams._

_Take Care xoxo,_

_The Jerk _


	14. Radiocassette Player

**#14 Radio-cassette Player**

Hwoarang knew that boredom had struck when he was reduced to counting the specks of glowing static in the morning light. In one hand, a drying biro lay loose against his palm. The other was empty, clenched in a fist around the thin cotton of his pillow as he tried to suppress some dangerous cravings. Behind him, Han and Kim lounged on the floor, both in similar states of drowsiness. An after-effect of a stiflingly warm afternoon combined with lethargy brought on from trying too hard. Industries like the music business thrived on pomp and show where mainstream synthesized beats sold like pop-corn in a movie-theater. Fortunately for Sky Rush, they'd come in at a time where the masses were tiring of the recycled expletives and sexual euphemisms streaming from the mouths of ghetto superstars. They were a 'niche market' as the oily-haired executive at their recording label had put it, a 'breath of fresh air in an over-saturated industry', a new generation of 'post-modern emo-punk hybrids' it seemed.

Heh, yeah right. The guy couldn't have distinguished Emo from Goth even if they'd taken turns parading around stark naked in front of him. As long as it sold to someone, he was happy to take them for the ride.

As for them, all they could do was hang on and try not to lose themselves to the whims of those who knew less.

Thanks to an accident involving Han and a scattered banana peel on the kitchen floor, Hwoarang had also been forced into searching for inspiration through an out-dated portable radio-cassette player with ear-phones. His shattered Ipod, containing his beloved anthems by System of a Down, Korn and old-school Linkin Park to name a few, had been sent for repairs so he'd had to settle for listening to deadbeat boybands and audio disasters which managed to pass off as 'hardcore techno' playing over the single radio-station which a clear transmission. Listening to mainstream pop may have been an acquired taste for most people but Hwoarang had never quite honed his senses to get used to sugary love ballads. These, combined with the dull sunshine, were making him sleepier if anything.

The thirst for a cold stiff drink made his throat itch. Good thing that he felt too lazy to get up and visit the nearest bar. They'd probably be closed around this time anyway…

A nagging thought gnawing at the back of his conscience kept him awake with heavy eyelids… if only he could figure out what it was… try to remember what he was supposed to have remembered…

"That was the sweet sound of SoundMash with their new single _Frenzy_ playing on – "

A scowl twisted his lips as the shrill cheery voice of the radio host pierced through his skull like a migraine. Yeesh, happy people should be placed on a curfew. If not, at least save the chipmunk-voiced ones for the early hours of morning when nobody was listening. It was enough to make anyone reach out for a joint or two.

" – and now, we have a request from Mei-Mei who'd like to dedicate _Just Touch Me, Baby_ by XiaoMi to her boyfriend who's – "

Hwoarang groaned.

_Damn you, Mei-Mei. Damn you and your pathetic taste in music._

XiaoMi was actually a duo. Ling Xiaoyu and Miharu Hirano, two little school-girls who'd taken the teen-pop world by storm in a pair of pastel mini-skirts and cherry-stained lip-glossed pouts. Unless you were born with a cynical eye, it was easy to fall for their saccharine charm. Two seemingly innocent virginal Bambi-eyed girls who used the word 'Baby' in every song their writers came up with. The ones that the middle-school girls want to emulate, the prizes that hormonal-charged teenage boys want to win, the posers at whom industry insiders secretly roll their eyes. Nobody cares if they couldn't sing shit even if they actually knew what the song was about. As long as they sold well, anything could pass for the sacrifice of real talent.

Music's a craft, an art. Unfortunately, he'd seen how many had used it to garner ill-deserved attention and accolades. It seemed that no matter how hard you worked, there would always be a bunch of plebs who couldn't tell the difference between a masterpiece and a hoax. So much for dreams of fame and fortune achieved through years of toil and trouble. It wasn't worth it if you were going to lose it to a pretty young thing who 'like, really really, you know, like _liked_ singing and whose favorite singers were, like, Hilary Duff because she's _so _cool and Miley Cyrus because, like, she can sing and you know, dance and act too'.

Bah, so what if everything they worked for was a humbug? They were going after it even if it killed them.

Ah… the irony of that sentence. He considered writing it down. Great last words those were…

"_I'm gonna chase my dream even if it kills me first."_

Fame was the disease that consumed all of them in the end. What he needed was a kiss from Lady Luck herself but unfortunately she was a picky vixen. She beamed down in sunny colors and star-lit skies on those who didn't need much to begin with. The rest of the human populace was apparently far below her touch. As a kid, he'd searched for her in the first star that appeared in every night sky. As a troubled teen, he'd sought her comfort in the kisses he received from girls curious enough to try. Years later, he'd given up and tried to accept his fate. Not that he was any good at it.

The jeering twinkling notes of the song's melody made him grit his teeth in frustration.

"_Boy, you look so fly._

_Lemme make you high…_

_Higher and higher."_

These _had _to be among the cheapest lyrics he'd ever heard. For crying out loud, he'd come up with better ones whilst he was drunk. This pathetic excuse for rhyme and rhythm almost sounded like a sugar-coated drug-peddling commercial. Or was this some, Heaven forbid as he rolled his eyes, indirect reference to sex? He wouldn't be surprised at all if these squeaky-clean pop princesses turned out to be closet skanks. Who knew what passed on between the young, beautiful and reckless in the smoky darkness of the swankiest night-clubs in these lonely cities better than he did?

Perhaps it should be his pity that they deserved instead of his contempt. Poor stupid little girls who'd fallen for the glitter and not the gold.

Not even twenty-two and as jaded as a veteran, he mused wryly. Such was the present. It wasn't as if the past had been any better either.

Finally letting his eyelids fall, he let sleep take over…

* * *

She remembered these flowers from a dream she'd had some time ago. They'd cushioned her fall as the searing pain had cut through her like several thousand knives through her aching flesh. Now as she walked through them, barefoot and cold, she wondered how she couldn't have noticed their scent when she was here the last time. Daisies and daffodils, endless fields of pure white and sunny yellow as far as her eyes could see. The clouds seemed to have descended from the skies and taken refuge on earth as a heavy mist enveloping her in its tight frigid embrace.

Pausing for a moment in her walk, she knelt down and gently stroked a delicate golden petal which had caught her fancy. The daffodil head seemed to droop mournfully from its stalk as if pining for something. Or someone. Echo the wood nymph pining for Narcissus who pined away for his reflection in the crystal clear waters of a spring. A tragic punishment befitting the sin of self-love.

A shot of white-hot pain rushed down her spine, causing her to gasp and stagger forward on her hands and knees. The awaiting bed of blossoms could only nod their heads in sympathy at her plight. As soon as it had sprung, the ache had dissipated just as instantly. She rolled onto her back and wiped at the trickle of sweat which had been trickling down her forehead.

When Echo pined away, she left nothing behind but her voice. Would Fate expect the same from her as well?

"Hey!"

One call, one voice was all it took for her to forget the darkening bruises on her skin and the loneliness of wandering through this path alone. The flowers didn't seem so sorrowful, the whiteness of the mist wasn't so harsh on her tired eyes and her heart began to hum a tune of sunshine and rainbows.

"Jules!"

"Hwoarang."

And everything was all better now.

He almost reminded her of those mythical heroes who came dashing through smoke and fire to save the trapped princess. Except that she'd be the one to save him from his own demons first. How quaint and unconventional, she smiled at the imagery.

"You're better now, aren't you, Jules? Better than when I last saw you here?"

The irony made her heart tremble but she smiled and nodded reassuringly for his sake. He looked like he was in better spirits than before. The scars still remained though and that worried her. His pain lived on inside of him, feeding off his hidden despair. It was still present; she could feel it on him, within the dark pupils of his eyes and throbbing beneath his skin. Memories of buried crimes and secret mistakes echoed around him. He could hear them but he'd chosen not to listen for the moment. It would be a matter for time until the dam would reach its limit and collapse…

A million little fears began to form in her conscious, lucid as the clearest of nightmares.

But…

"I'm glad you're here. With me."

"So am I." The touch of his hands gliding up her arms and then around her waist as he drew her closer was enough to make her head spin and her eyes water. "… God, Julia… I missed you… so much."

She'd missed him too. More than he'd ever know.

"And I had so many things to say to you… and I've gone and forgotten them all…"

"It's okay, you're here with me now. Nothing could be more important than that."

The world around him had melted away with his words and she stayed encircled in his arms, wrapped up warm and safe, even if it was just for the shortest period that time could grant. Yet she would give anything, absolutely anything, to make sure that the clock ceased ticking so that she'd stay here for a little while longer…

Just a little while longer…

She winced as his hand brushed past her shoulder. Her anguished cry made him loosen his grip immediately with a gaze of concern. Unable to bear it anymore, she tried to retreat from his embrace but he held onto her firmly. Raising a trembling hand, he lifted a corner of one broad strap of her dress and pushed it aside to reveal a thickening bruise, dark and grey as a thundercloud.

His eyes turned impassive and a chill rushed through her.

"What happened?"

"An accident."

Behind those rust brown eyes, an ache that mirrored her own bloomed in moist colors. Bit by bit, she watched helplessly as its crippling effect unfolded.

"But you're alright, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Please tell me that it's true…"

She wasn't sure.

Seeing the cast-down image in her eyes, he let his head droop in misery as a single answer loomed heavily on his mind. A mourning daffodil, on the verge of falling apart, pining for a lost lover that may never returned. She found the tears flowing down, hard and easy, lost in his desolation. As dark as the storm clouds were, a lone ray of sunlight was enough to break through the bleakness. A cheerful daisy in the midst of a sea of weeping daffodils. Sometimes… the smallest ounce of hope was capable of carrying the most broken of men forward… as she'd once heard a long time ago.

"Come," she whispered softly in his ear. "Lie here with me for a while."

She guided him down to the grass, where he'd once held her close in a reverie, and rested his head on her lap. A bleary eye stared up at her from behind strands of copper-red hair.

"So many golden daffodils as far as I can see. Reminds me of the story of Persephone. I'll tell you about her so that everything makes sense."

Brushing away the loose strands of hair from his face, she silently pleaded with him to listen.

"Persephone was a Greek goddess famed for her beauty and gentle nature. She was said to be the epitome of spring, innocence and the soul. It must have been hard for anyone not to fall for her charm. This was what happened when Hades, the Ruler of the Underworld, set his eyes on her.

"Hades was often portrayed as a villain in many of the myths I read about but I felt some pity for him. It must have been hard to rule over a land as cold and barren as the Underworld, where nothing of joy could ever survive. The only sort of life that existed down there were the souls that had been dragged down there to be punished for sins they'd committed in their previous lives. In a world of death and grief, Persephone's beauty was the sunlight that had never graced Hades with her soft touch. Love at first sight, simple as that. The feeling consumed with a fire so scorching that he struck the earth beneath her causing it to split in two. As she fell, he caught her and spirited her away to the Underworld."

"… Did she ever escape?"

"Yes. Her mother, Demeter, sent a messenger called Hermes who managed to drive a bargain with Hades. Persephone would return to her mother but she would visit Hades and stay with him for four months of the year. That's why she wore a garland of daffodils in her hair from then onwards. As a reminder of the promise she was a part of and to never go back on her word."

"Poor her…"

"Poor Demeter… I can only imagine what she'd felt at losing her daughter…"

The pain returned to her once more. This time, it was anything but physical. It had been too long. It may stay like this forever. Too many things were too uncertain to hold on to for as long she liked.

"What does any of this have to with you, Jules? Or us?"

"You might figure that out sooner or later." She slipped a warm, comforting hand into his. "If anything, it's just a story. It's how the listener interprets it from the narrator that counts. You should understand that yourself… a rockstar is simply a bard in jeans and a leather jacket. A modern-day story-teller."

"You're as elusive as a nymph yourself… why can't you just answer a simple question?"

"It's hard when the answers are never set in stone themselves. Aside from that, I want you to take care of yourself from now on. I'll be with you every step of the way if you should need me."

"But…"

"Don't worry… I know you'll be fine. You're much, _much _stronger than you think…"

The last thing he knew was the sweet spice of her lips against his… a light teardrop landing on his dry cheek…

"Do me proud, soldier. Know that someone's always watching over you…"

* * *

A light shake startled Hwoarang awake.

"Dude, you're as pale as a ghost. Bad dream?"

Han's voice seemed to come from a far-off distance. His vision had also grown static, blurry shapes with concerned tones in their voices.

The last thing he needed or wanted was a drink as he tried to press the invisible imprint of her hand into his empty palm and the taste of cool sweet lips on his. The nagging reminder at the back of his mind resurfaced in full force before him.

_Where do you go when you sleep, Julia?_

He wasn't sure if he knew any more than she did. Or if he'd ever find her there.

The parched screams forming a part _Liar in the Glass _by Eyes Set To Kill rang out loud and clear from the muffled ear-pieces.


	15. Perfect Blue

**#15. Perfect Blue**

"Hey, wait up!" Han called out as Hwoarang strode through the lobby of the hotel where they'd been staying. "Where're you going anyway? I thought you were supposed to stay put after what happened last night…"

"Don't worry."

"How are we supposed _not _to?!"

He allowed enough time for a backward glance at the panting drummer. "Just trust me… I know what I'm doing this time."

"Considering your track record for the past few months, I find that hard to believe – "

"Han," Hwoarang turned around to face him directly, pleading with his eyes. "Please."

Returning his stare, the other man seemed at a loss for words. He began shaking his head in one final act of desperation before Kim chose to nod firmly. The expression on the latter's face was unreadable with his eyes averted and mouth set in a grim line. For one half-second, a flash of understanding passed between them as Hwoarang nodded back and pulled on his black windbreaker.

"I'll come back soon, I promise."

He pushed the dark-tinted shades up his nose and headed outside to the parking lot. His bike was at rest beneath a tree, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. Mind and heart already setting the pace, he straddled the molten silver vehicle and kick-started the engine to life. Allowing very little time for it to warm up, he sped out of the lot and into the main highway. The world flew by him, streams of grey, charcoal, dead fluorescent shop signs and flashes of light striking metal at the corners of his eyes. He didn't bother paying attention to the pedestrians crowding the pavement…

"_Do me proud, soldier."_

A toddler in overalls clutching his mother's hand, pointing and staring open-mouthed at the bike that whizzed past them in a blur…

"_Don't worry… I know you'll be fine."_

Teenage couples enjoying their summer vacation, a sabbatical from the stresses of home, school and peer pressure. Carefree as can be…

"_As she fell, he caught her and spirited her away to the Underworld."_

Hordes of individuals following their own paths to their own destinies, unaware of what may befall them…

"_I'm glad you're here."_

He didn't want to think about it. But he could still feel the wordless premonition left by her voice as he'd awakened.

"_An accident."_

He passed glass skyscrapers reflecting the perfect blue of the summer sky, business man dining alfresco under vibrant parasols and dozens of lifeless faces peering out from car windows, watching him with descending jaws as he paid no heed to them and their material possessions. With nothing but the heat beating down on his back and the wind tearing at his hair, he was less than a knotted bundle of raw feeling coursing through the city veins faster than the sounds striking his ears. No synchronicity, no parallelism, no connections binding him to any purpose, he had stooped to being a drifter high on an intolerable ache.

The shrill pitch of a car-horn in the distance cracked the buzzing in his head. He shook it off violently, refusing to let anything break him to losing grip of his dreams and, least of all, her. Keeping his eyes wide open and fixed on the furthest point ahead of him, he breathed in the petrol fumes that made up the core of the road's heady aroma. It gagged him as he swallowed the substance and he almost choked.

_No, not now!_

Hwoarang gave the machine below him another hard kick so that he'd hear that familiar roar of defiance. He wouldn't stop now, he wouldn't let her fade to black so soon even if he'd have to drive himself to the point of insanity. Coughing roughly amidst the polluted air, he broke out from the trail of cars and flew down the first empty lane that presented itself. His knuckles screamed in agony from their blistering grip on the handlebars but he adamantly refused to let go.

"Put me back together or separate the skin from bone. Leave me all the pieces, then you can leave me alone."

He sounded out each word, releasing each like a bullet aimed at every sinister cackle which dared to ring in his head. Old lyrics from his favorite songs, the ones that would pulse beneath his skin and make his vocal chords beg for more when they were played. Messages from artistes he'd never met but he idolized them with their crumbling bravado and strong, powerful screeches which had propelled him to seek whatever they were looking for in the same way.

"I'm worse at what I do best and for this gift I feel blessed. Our little group has always been and always will until the end."

His throat creaked ominously as he sang to himself, randomly replaying sections in his head. He didn't have to think about what to do next, it all came naturally to him, words that had been etched in invisible ink on his tongue.

"If we could take the time to lay it on the line, I could rest my head just knowin' that you were mine. All mine."

The city began to fade, giving way to the prairie lands on the outskirts. A warm breeze ruffled his crimson mane. Below the cool, detached veneer presented by his drab clothing and thin-lipped grimace, the grief had risen to a boiling rage. A piping hot, dizzying, bloodcurdling sorrowful rage which erupted in the nexus of his chest threatening to burst through his pounding heart as the laughter rose above his voice. The wind cut against him like a wire, angering him further. Out here, all alone, in the middle of nowhere where no one could hear him scream for help.

Thus, his defenses shattered, the shards remaining trapped behind dry eyes.

The bike skidded to a halt over a sandy ridge overlooking a cluster of bare hills. Hwoarang threw himself down onto his feet and howled so hard that he could feel his lungs scrape his ribs. Barely an echo had returned when he started again, his voice cracking from the aridness of his throat. His knees soon buckled under the pressure and he fell to a hunched position on the ground, hands curling tight into fists around the loose soil.

Blind and deaf, alone and vulnerable, he flailed against reality's grip. Sand flew in all directions as fists and feet battered anything they could reach from pebbles to dried shrubs. The music in his ears was now a symphony of destruction, crests and troughs of the highs and lows which came with the pain. Piercing highs and lows which rumbled so loud that peace seemed like a mythical illusion. In the darkness presented by his eyes squeezed shut came staggering shots of electric bright light, anything but serene. Cacophonies of screeching catcalls split through him and he cried out for the end. The grand finale which would begin the devastation.

He opened his eyes.

Bits and pieces of twigs lay at his feet along with brown leaves he'd struck from stems. His toes hurt from the stones he'd kicked at and even his fingers were drawn with thin scarlet lines where they'd attacked sharp thorns. He shook the sand from his hair and spat it from his mouth.

All grew quiet. Mockingly quiet.

The only shade he could find was beneath his bike where he collapsed against. He could barely summon the strength to stand, let alone go back to the hotel.

_Come now, breathe properly, Hwoarang._

His Master's words made him sigh. If only problems were that easy to fix. His disease was two-fold: the most important things in life had never been easy for him to express, the uglier side of him was difficult to control. He'd never tell anyone about how much he did care, how truly sorry he was that he'd hurt them or how much they really meant to him. More often than not, the words lay trapped within him for fear of upsetting what he hadn't ruined. Fate also had a nasty way of getting him back whenever he tried to take the reins from her. Why bother trying? There were things which were easier to say… less heartfelt things like jokes. Or things that he spilled out when he was angry, annoyed or bitter. All the worse things possible, just because he was too weak to say more than he could speak.

_Inhale._

His lungs ached from screaming so loud earlier but he attempted it.

_On the count of three, exhale._

Easier said than done when you were a hair's breadth away from being beaten and broken.

_1_

Let go… just let go, he commanded himself…

_2_

Okay…

_3_

… Okay…

The sun still shone too bright and the sky was still that sickening shade of perfect blue. To take his mind anywhere but here, he tried to look ahead to the future. There would be nothing save for the music crafted from his own inspiration. Such moments of epiphany had been difficult to come by nowadays. There were many experiences he had yet to undergo in order to fully understand the cosmos or what catharsis meant. The land, sea and sky lay spread out before, undiscovered and inviting him to quench his restlessness. So many ideas shining like fireflies which darted into the blue from where they'd arisen as soon as he caught sight of them.

Eyes at half-mast, he thought he felt the length of her braid brush his wrist. A spark of an idea ignited and extinguished itself as a series of words bloomed.

_I've gone this far without you_

_Searching for a Goddess that was a lie._

A potential beginning? He'd have to ponder on that later. At the moment, the least he could do for his unlikely muse was to breathe some life into her. Although worn from the numbing heat, he would try to do her justice…

He pictured her in a dark red sleeveless shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Red because it was his favorite color and jeans because no one wore them like she could. He painted her skin a warm shade of summery golden tones as any wood nymph deserved. Hair and eyes shining in deep rich brown, peach-soft lips leaning over his. She stubbornly refused to do as he willed, shaking some loose strands free from his hold. Not ready to let her go so easily, he reached out and cornered her next to him.

Her skin set him ablaze as he cupped her face in his hands.

She gazed in surprise, a curious fawn caught in the wolf's den.

Innocence… is transient.

And he'd cast caution and reality to the winds, enveloping her in longing need. Fingertips caressed her form, tracing the curve hip-bone and the swell of her breast. He'd needed, wanted, _yearned_, _pined_ for this type of contact, bare skin on skin. It didn't burn as bad with her around and summer felt _so damn _great. Nuzzling her closer, he could smell her old perfume and her clothes fresh from the wash. Earthy scents of herbs and spring blossoms which had captivated him from their first embrace, a moan escaping her throat when he nipped at it, her braid unraveling as he pulled it free from its clip, his heart whispering its secrets underneath her palm, a painfully beautiful illusion he'd resurrected.

"You're not going anywhere," he ordered her between kisses. "You're staying here, with me. Don't you dare move."

Her reply was feather-light, overwhelmed by the attention his hands and mouth demanded.

"You're real."

The light in her eyes was fading too fast so that her they darkened to a tree-bark color. He still clung on hopefully.

"You're not dead, Julia. I won't let you leave that way."

She laid her head against his chest. The sun was setting overhead.

"Don't die, Jules… where am I supposed to go if I don't know where you are? I can't let you die."

A lonely cloud drifted above and Hwoarang was left cradling air.

* * *

**The songs alluded to in this chapter are Slipknot's 'Duality', Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and Guns N Roses' 'November Rain'. Great stuff, give them a listen.**


	16. Unrivaled

**#16 Unrivaled**

**2 years ago**

It was smooth sliding until the brush snagged the first knot. Wincing through the sharp pain, Julia tugged it free and gazed in dismay at the long brown strands coiled around the bristles. At times like these, she considered getting a haircut. A trip to the salon would do her good. She was getting tired of spending more than fifteen minutes on brushing and braiding thick waist-length hair which she'd been growing for as long as she could remember.

With one final stroke, she shook her locks free so they hung in loose waves framing her face. Would a crop look too harsh on an oval-shaped face? Perhaps not _too _short then… just a few inches off the length…

Inspiration suddenly dawned. She bent her back forward while keeping her eyes fixated on their reflection in the mirror and concentrated on focusing a fierce energy through them. Almost perfect. If her hair had been a few shades darker along with the correct amount of chalky gothic make-up and lighting, she could pass off as a decent Tim Burton-esque heroine. All she needed was a good dose of angst for the attitude and then move over, Corpse Bride…

That last bit she could do.

High school may have been done with for good about five months ago but she still had two more years to attain that coveted title of adulthood. Those evergreen teenage years would have to be left behind in those dusty photo-albums on the shelves as she'd have to adjust to a new life of responsibilities and worries. Mother would like her to do all the things _she'd_ never got around to doing. Graduate with honors, get a good job, a good man, start a family of her own and live happily ever after. But those things were ages, possibly light years away. With grades like hers, applying for college was a cinch compared to those weeping buckets over their mediocre report cards.

Of course, she wasn't one to underestimate things. Classes were supposed to be attended, not bunked. Assignments and exams had to be prepared for ahead of schedule and handed in on time, not to be done at the eleventh hour. She would work as diligently as ever without breaking a step in her routine. True, not the most fun way to go about life but it usually worked out well in the end.

But she _would _have fun too. She was determined to allow that for a change.

Glaring into her not-quite-yet gothic mirror image, she decided to keep her hair long. That way, she could hide behind it and remain an enigma for the masses…

An electronic 'ping' from her open laptop released the catch on the expectation tickling the tips of her fingers. Nobody would have suspected the sudden change in temperament from the steadiness in her gait and the firmness in her mouth. Eyes can only betray so much but her brown orbs offered little more than a fraction of her fading childish excitement.

_You have one new message!_

She didn't hesitate to click on the bold font, knowing full well that it would end in disappointment.

_Hey Jules,_

_Just reached here. Meeting Han and J tomorrow, then we audition for a new bassist. Weather's cleared up. Pretty tired now so I can't say any more. Hope you're doing fine._

_Hwoarang_

Hope you're doing fine. Probably inserted as an afterthought.

She was fine.

Just fine.

* * *

"You're sure you're fine?"

Hwoarang had to raise his voice above the crowd he was in to be heard on his cell. "Yeah, Han. Just give me a little more time… need to get my head straight…"

"Wasn't that what you were supposed to do with Lani?"

"Believe me, she wouldn't know what to do with me on this one."

"Then just – " Han appeared to break off to reply to someone in the background. "Okay, okay, I'll tell him… Hwoarang? Don't get in trouble, okay?"

He smiled at the almost childlike tone in his friend's voice. "I won't."

"Good… okay… see ya?"

"See ya."

He waited for the line to disconnect before sliding the phone shut. Although he wished Han's concern would have lifted his spirits, nothing of that effect had transpired. Back in the city, the sun had set and the throngs of cackling partygoers had descended upon the street. Darkened buildings awash with neon lights advertised a better lifestyle for the young and naïve. Now that he knew better, bright lights and smoky dreams had lost their esoteric appeal. Bike parked on the sidewalk with nowhere else to go, he contemplated losing his mind, abandoning his cell-phone and hitching a ride to a place where nobody could reach him.

The craving for the warmth of an illegal drag had started its ascent. He leaned against the cold steel of his vehicle and folded his arms so that they'd stay still.

"All dressed up and nowhere to go? I guess some things never change."

That voice… painfully familiar enough to send his head reeling, yet unable to a find its place in his memory. He spun round to face her. She looked just like he remembered her, all tanned curves and bright eyes. The firm toned figure he'd experienced was sheathed in a pair of grey slacks, cream cotton shirt and a denim jacket. Long auburn-brown held back in a clip revealed silver hoop earrings sliding against defined high cheek-bones.

"Christie."

The Brazilian shook her head, her lips lifting slightly at the corners. "I'm surprised you even remembered."

"Can't forget a good fuck that easily."

"I should've guessed." She glanced at the bike behind him. "So what brings you to my part of the world?"

"A tour. The usual set of clubs and bars, nothing serious…"

"You're doing that again."

"What?"

"Undermining yourself."

"Feeling a bit modest today. Call me when I've found my happy place and then I'll be the nice cocky Hwoarang everyone loves to hate."

"Tsk, tsk, I'm glad I'm not in the music business. There's only so much Emoism that I can take." She examined the watch strapped on her wrist. "Was heading out for some coffee before catching my flight. Care to join me?"

"You're leaving soon?"

"Mm-hm, got a modeling contract a couple weeks ago. I'm off to my third job in a few hours."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks. So…" She lowered her curious gaze for a second. "You're not coming?"

He considered it. It wasn't like he was heading back anytime soon. Out here, he would be running the risk of falling back on old habits. Come to think of it, he hadn't _any _reason to be wandering about at all.

"Okay, why not."

"Alright then…"

He followed Christie through the crowded streets until he grew sick of it and matched his steps with hers. Looking down at the woman who had once been his lover, he could imagine himself falling for her all over again. How could he have not in the first place? They could have been something if he'd actually tried.

The café they entered was refreshingly cool and comfortable. The outdoor desert breeze had singed the skin beneath his clothes so the gentle mechanical hum of the air conditioning felt great against his aching limbs. Being the weekend, it was also reasonably packed with customers. Somehow, Christie managed to navigate their way to an empty table near the window. As soon as they were seated, she'd asked him what he wanted. He shook his head and said that he'd already eaten. Though he was sure she didn't believe a word he uttered, she nodded and headed to the counter to place her order.

Instantly, the guilt swept over him.

Here he was, in a cozy little café, with another woman while Julia was… _could _be somewhere, anywhere for that matter, probably hurt, in pain, or…

He didn't want to think about it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Christie tapped his shoulder.

"They don't come cheap."

"As always."

She took her seat across from him. Behind them, he felt the envious glances directed at him. Any red-blooded man would have willingly castrated himself to be in the same room as Christie Monteiro. Having known her since his high school days, he definitely had the upper hand over them. A beautiful girl even back then with a perfect body and a vivacious personality. When they'd met a few years later, she could have had the pick of the bunch of guys who lay panting at her feet. But instead, she'd said yes when he'd asked, initiating a whirlwind affair that could hardly be called a 'romance'. There was no point in singing a love song without the love to make it real.

"So, Hwoarang, what's new with you?"

_Um, how about some misadventures with alcohol, drugs and women? Add to that, a suicide attempt and a stint in hospital. Oh yeah, and did you know that I'm in therapy? And I keep having these dreams about my first girlfriend which seem to point to some frightening truth about her. But I'm too damn scared to admit that to myself basically so now I'm so fuckin' confused that I think I might repeat all this from the start._

"Nothing much." He replied.

Christie wasn't satisfied with his answer. He could tell from the way she was fiddling with her stirrer and tapping her left foot on the wooden floor. Nevertheless, she didn't press him. Their relationship had always been one without questions. She gave, he took, no complications involved.

"Things are finally looking up for me. A few months back, a woman approached me in a fast food restaurant, of all places, and handed me a business card. Turns out, she happened to work for a modeling talent agency and she thought I had 'potential'. And voila, before I knew what I hit me, I'm on a plane to LA and on a ramp wearing a dress that's worth more than my apartment."

"Any problems with that?"

"No, nothing at all."

"Potential?" He mimicked the implied sarcasm in her earlier tone. She chuckled quietly.

"Well, honestly, Hwoarang, contrary to what you and many other men would assume, it's hard for a girl like me to make her way in the fashion industry. Most designers don't cater to women with a bra-size over A-cup and the most favored dress size just happens to be a size two."

She sipped her coffee and made a face. "Forgot to add the sugar."

Watching her rip open the packet and pour in the sweetener, it struck him that she might still be single. He wasn't tempted but he could have been if it wasn't for the girl whose reflection he caught in the glass. She had a long dark braid down her back too…

When she turned, he was disappointed. It wasn't _her_.

"Are you seeing anyone?"

_Yeah, my therapist._

"No." He answered. "Been caught up in too many things lately…"

"Yeah, I know. Trying to get your priorities straight, setting new resolutions, all that fuss about nothing…"

Christie's voice trailed off. Above the noise, an old ballad blared through the hidden amplifiers. Something jazzy and eclectic, perfect for these coffee-house places. If he had to choose, he could use some quiet, especially the type that came at the dead of night. Hwoarang had never really understood that saying. Nights rarely died. People resurrected it. It was alive with dreams, nightmares and insomniatic mental ramblings of those who couldn't afford either. In the dark, no one could kill the night. The night would be the death of you...

"Seen that?" Christie cocked her head to the building opposite them.

He looked, held his gaze in disbelief and then rolled his eyes in disgust.

"Pathetic."

"And yet popular enough to rake in bundles of cash for their record company." She smiled knowingly at his reaction to the glittery poster slapped on the wall. "I take it you're not a XiaoMi fan."

"Remind me to tear out my kidneys and stuff them down my throat if I'm ever forced to attend one of their concerts."

"The kids like them."

"Heh, fifteen year olds these days. They're sheep, follow anyone wearing a pink tutu skirt who sings like a trained squirrel."

"Someone sounds bitter."

"I'm not bitter, I'm a rockstar."

He regretted saying that immediately. Now she knew that he hadn't changed for the better.

"Sorry... that just slipped..."

"No problem, since we aren't together anymore."

Their love hadn't been able to survive the night. It only flourished during the day when the sunshine was there to warm the cooling passion. Love hadn't been worthy of the name. It had only been a substitute for what money or good looks couldn't attract. Christie avoided watching him. She'd returned to staring at the air-brushed poster.

"Strange how fame changes people. Sometimes it just turns them into puppets manipulated by whoever owns them in a contract."

"Couldn't agree more."

"It's changed us all, Hwoarang. Thickened our skin, contorted our hearts, made us give up our innocence for the show that they orchestrated."

He knew that too. Everything she said, from first-hand experience. Glossy pictures in a magazine never told the truth. They were just the same tragic storylines recycled for the public to chew on and spit out when they lost their flavour. There was only this much that anyone could take of their image being slammed beneath a slanderous headline. A sin committed in private would stay a sin, a sin committed and then unveiled to the world was a crime of epic proportions.

"You know, sometimes I think Jules was smart not to follow the same path as us."

His throat seized at the mention of her name. "Hmm..."

"Hwoarang... do you think she was more hurt than she let on when she heard about us?"

"... I think that's a question only she can answer."

"No one feels good about their ex dating a friend of theirs."

"Yeah."

He prayed that this conversation would end soon. He wished that Christie would just get up and walk away. He willed himself to keep his thoughts of _her _for the night when he could seek comfort in her presence.

"D'you still keep in touch with her?" He ventured carefully.

"... No." She sighed, sipping morosely. "Lost contact. What about you?"

"Same here."

"I'm surprised."

"You are?"

"Of course. You loved her. More than you ever loved me..."

"Christie..."

"Don't apologize." She stood up and prepared to take her leave. "Some people just leave that much of an impression with you. I mean, I admit I didn't try to understand as much as I should have back then but I _do _realize a bit now that she's unrivalled in that respect. But I did try – "

He grabbed her hand as she tried to brush past him. "I know."

"... That won't fix things..."

"Nothing's invincible, Christie. Not even me and her..."

They stood there, hands locked in a shaking grasp. Hands which had traced the skin under each other's clothes and caressed the breaths they'd drawn during the heat of those lonely nights. Staring in opposite directions, neither could bear to read what the other had engraved onto their past. Both knew what had died should stay buried. Dreams died when the sun rose, never to come to life if there was nothing to breathe into it.

"I love Julia, Chris. You weren't a mistake, just – "

"A replacement."

"... Yes."

"Honesty," She exhaled the word tiredly. "I should learn to get used to that."

"Me too."

"Would you let go now?"

He did. Instead of running to the door, she leaned in and placed a light kiss on his lips. All he felt was the memory of another, more dearer, who'd gifted him the same not too long ago in a dream.

_Jules..._

"Bye, Hwoarang."

"... Bye."

Outside, the night's promise of sleep beckoned to him.


	17. kHz

**#17. kHz**

Hwoarang stumbled through the field, without giving a damn for the flowers he was crushing underfoot. He hated these flowers. He hated that they were cold and white, he hated that they just _stood there _as he ran about searching. For her, she was the one reason he was back here, amidst the freezing mist and torrid nightmares. For her, he would gladly cut off his ties to the other world and wander through miles of emptiness just to hear a faint sliver of her voice.

The field seemed so barren somehow… absolutely no sign of fertility and yet the flowers still thrived. They were cold, almost frozen to the touch. So still, so quiet, so… _dead_. Dead, but alive. Still standing upright, clear as ghosts. The mist was blindingly white as always, swallowing the sky in emptiness. A blank canvas, but he wasn't in the mood to draw on it. Not until he found her first. As soon he found her, he promised himself, he'd never let her go. He'd keep her under lock and key so that she'd never escape again. No, wait; he'd been the one to cast her out in the first place.

Yes, he deserved this punishment.

The path seemed to thin out…

His hand closed around a doorknob. Cold metal in his palm, so worryingly familiar. Compelled to follow the order, he turned it. Slowly, achingly slow. With each second that ticked by, he remembered one more voice…

"_She was quite unstable… after all that heartache they caused her…"_

"_Too late to save her, son… I'm so sorry…"_

"… _Hwoarang? How could you?"_

A scream.

"_I've told you before not to play with the fuse box! 60 kHz is likely to kill you…"_

"_What's a… kHz?"_

A sigh.

"_Leave me alone, Hwoarang."_

"_But – "_

"_Go outside and play."_

Why had he bothered to go outside and play? He should have stayed indoors where it was safer. But the house was so dark, ever since his father had died, ever since he'd been sent away to atone for his sins. It had always been a cold, cold house but now… it reeked of death. Death lurked in the shadows, hunched like a panther ready to pounce on the next weakling. The cold white oleander in the porcelain vase had been a premonition of things to come. This was why he hated flowers so much. They were beautiful creatures, except that they concealed their poison beneath those soft tender petals.

How gullible of him to fall prey to their toxicity, time and time again.

When he awoke, he was relieved to find his fist clenched around his bed sheet. No more closed doors.

For now.

* * *

Half past five in the morning and he was still wide awake. Odd, considering that he wasn't exactly a lark in the morning. He'd rather sleep when the sun was too fierce than arise to its scorching glare. Definitely out of character for him. Bu there were certain advantages. The morning air was cool outside. It felt deceptively pure on the eyes. The sun was still far below the inky horizon so he had plenty of time to kill.

He remained still, locked in a limp position. A puppet with its strings cut off.

Or maybe the strings were invisible now. He was still a slave to his misery's whims. Morning was a medicine he needed to keep a hold on his sanity. Night made it too easy to slip out from his grasp.

He didn't want to end up like his mother.

At the same time… _he did_.

He wasn't so sure if he was as scared of this as he was before.

He had melted into a body of contradictions. Fearless and cowardly, clean and tainted, victorious and defeated. Both sides often melded together to form an indistinguishable palate of colors. Light shades with nuances of darkness swarming before his eyes, begging him to question the theory of his existence. He wasn't born to be anything less than ordinary but he couldn't help being so. He wanted people to surround him, he needed to feel each of their individual, unique touches, and he _needed _to be told that he was indeed, above all things, loved without mercy or restraint. And yet he despised them for doing so, for giving him more reasons to ache, for reminding him that he was only human. As much he loved them with undying loyalty, he hated them for helping him love so unselfishly.

Complications, so many complications.

Red was a color that he'd come to embody. Red was a human color. He bled red over his music and into his love. Red was passion, fire, vibrancy, warmth, love, life. Red was what he was made of.

He twisted a strand of his hair around his finger, loathing it to the core.

Mornings made his thoughts blur. What he needed was clarity so he roused himself to stand. The bones in his limbs protested with a creak. He grimaced. He hadn't even reached the pinnacle of his years and he was already spent. Perhaps he should quit while he was ahead? Take a much-needed break from showbiz? Yeah right, like he'd be able to live that down. Chucking all thoughts of premature retirement out from his mind, he opened his door and slid into the hallway. It was fortunate that he'd happened to fall asleep in his outdoor clothes last night. All he'd had to do before leaving was shrug on a jacket.

He passed rooms occupied by sleeping lovers and weary travelers who'd passed out from cheap alcohol they'd smuggled in. Well, honestly speaking, he knew his guesses were far from accurate. It was just a game he liked to play. A game of 'make believe that there are people out there with lives that are actually more fucked up than yours'. The rules were simple: pick out the most random stranger who walks by you and just pretend that they're a closet S&M addict who shoots up on LSDs when they're not cutting up their wrists after purging this morning's breakfast spent with a prostitute who didn't give a fuck as long as they were paid on the spot.

Not surprisingly, he usually found himself a few points short of winning.

The light was pale, weaker than usual. His surroundings were bathed in an innocent shade of baby blue. Looking up at the sky, he almost expected the snow to fall, replaying the events which had followed after the last time he'd left a hotel in a less-than-stable condition. But he had been sleep-walking then… that's why he'd seen Julia. It had almost felt like… he was in Heaven.

Had that been a fluke? A sinner like him didn't deserve a place up there.

The funny thing was that it had felt _real_. It hadn't been a dream or an image created by a drug, she had been _real. _Everything from the touch of her hand to the silk of her hair sliding against his lips. And to think she might be dead. Dead like his mother, dead like his father, dead like Baek, dead like his heart. The last time it had beaten so hard that his chest had wanted to explode was when she'd kissed him the day before. In a dream.

He didn't want her to be like them.

She was _so damn _different from them to deserve that fate.

He tried to suppress the sheer hopelessness that built up inside him and swallow down the cries that were threatening to be released. What happened next made him faintly aware of his bleeding knuckles and a battered rusty old mail-box. Biting everything down, he took another swing at the shattered piece of metal for him to feel the adrenalin spike in his blood. He needed endorphins from the physical pain to counter the ache in his chest. Shards of white-hot pain sliced through the bones in his fists but he kept on going until he could barely raise his arms to do more damage.

His eyes cleared and all he saw was red. Shining like paint on his cracked skin, spattered over the splintered remains of the mail-box, in drops on the concrete pavement and he was sure they stained the corners of his forehead where he'd brushed aside stray locks of hair which had gotten in his way. Red, red was the color he hated. The color of his sins and the evidence of his pathetic mortality.

"I don't want to die."

"_I want to die."_

"I don't want to die."

"_I want to die."_

"I don't want to die."

"_I… want… to… die…"_

By and by, it came to him. Today was _that _day. This was the day he'd been betrayed by the woman he used to worship as a goddess. He had buried it at the back of his past, hoping that he would never have to see her face haunting him as he slept. He wasn't sleeping… so that's when she'd seized her chance to make him pay…

* * *

**Eleven years ago**

He must have made Mama angry again for him to be sent out to play. It would have been better if she'd just yelled at him and got it over with.

He was ten years old now, so he was supposed to be too old to be sent out to play. Nobody here had any kids his age with whom he could kick a ball around with. Even if they did, chances were that they wouldn't be allowed to play with him anyway. He was the messed-up kid from down the road, the one that couldn't be trusted because he'd spent six months in a juvenile hall. He'd heard them whisper behind his back when they'd thought he wasn't looking. "Is _that _the one?" "Yeah, the one who did _that_?" "Yes, he's the one."

Hwoarang pulled up a daisy by the stalk. A few tugs were all it took for it to break free. Pathetic creatures, he mused as he plucked off their petals, one by one, crushing each between his thumb and forefinger. Useless, completely useless…

He'd show them. He didn't need anybody because he was strong enough to stand on his own feet. He would grow to be a warrior, strong and fierce, and then everybody would feel sorry that they'd ever mocked him.

Stamping on flowers had never felt so good before. Those silly posters on his wall would have to go down first. He was far too big for cartoons now. He would get rid of those toys as well.

A rush of elation colored his face. He sprung to the doorway, determined to make his announcement before Mama so that she'd be proud of him for once.

The door banging behind him almost upset the vase she liked. The one filled with the pale cream-white flowers which drooped downwards. They made him wonder if they were sad and mourning for something. For what?

"Mama!"

He bounded through the kitchen and into the living-room, searching for a trace of her slight slim form. Nothing. That left the bedroom then. He immediately sped up the stairs to find her and tell her of his new ambition. Picturing the proud glow in her eyes, he hurried. Lucky for him, she'd left a trail of her perfume behind her. This way, he'd have no problem figuring out her hiding-place.

Ah, here it was.

The door burst open under his hands.

The first thing his eyes met were hers. Instead of pride, they brimmed with lifelessness beneath dark feathery lashes. She looked so beautiful in her pink silk cherry-blossom wrap blouse. The perfume was just as he remembered the last time she'd worn it. Perfect. Even her hands and nails. Perfectly soft and manicured, not a smudge in sight. She looked like an angel without wings. Suspended in the air by a white sheet around her ivory neck.

She was so beautiful.

So beautiful that she made his eyes water and legs collapse at the sight of her.

Now he knew why the oleander forever mourned.

* * *

Goodbyes had never been easy for him. He had been too late to save his own mother, hadn't bothered to wish Baek farewell and had forgotten to kiss Julia. He was guilty of all these crimes and here was his punishment. The bodies would rot to nothing but ashes and dust, yet the memories would last until the day he met his end. He hugged his body closer for precious warmth and pressed his streaming eyes against his knees.

"Help me, Julia."

She couldn't hear him. He needed her hands to on his cheeks and her lips pressed against his to kiss his sorrow goodbye. He was never any good at bidding anyone adieu…

"Please… you're the only one who can…"

Numbness was settling into his system. Not even shockwaves of 1,000 kHz could shake him out of this horrible scenery. He silently prayed for a miracle; even a bolt of lightning to strike him at this very moment to wake him up.

As he expected, his pleading fell on deaf ears.

"Help me anyway… please…"


	18. Say 'ahh'

**#18. "Say ahh…"**

Lani had reacted quickly when she heard his voice over the phone. Hwoarang had sounded worn-out; not surprising her considering that it was barely six in the morning. She hadn't wasted time asking pointless questions. Mind shifting into automatic pilot, she'd flung on the first clean pair of jeans and t-shirt she could extract from the closet before hightailing it to her car parked outside her flat. She didn't even have time to take a shower or put her glasses on. Oh well, keeping up one's appearance was absolutely irrelevant at the moment…

To her relief, it hadn't taken too long to find him. He hadn't even cleared ten feet from where he was staying, the poor wretch.

His skin had felt icy cold beneath her fingertips.

"How long have you been out here?"

He didn't answer, still huddled into himself with the brick wall behind him for support. His clothes smelt dry and musky, like the stale air of a locked room on a sunny day, like how her grandmother's living-room used to smell. Not bothering to wait for a reply, she grabbed him by the shoulders and attempted to shake him loose from his hold on himself. It had taken some time but he arose soon, joints popping and eyelids fluttering open. Unlike the last time she'd seen him, his eyes were clear. Glassy clear like a marionette's glass-beaded eyes on display on a stage. A half-second and an odd surge of inspiration later, she realized she was almost akin to his manipulator helping his limp form rise to the occasion.

"C'mon now, let's get you back."

He didn't protest when she fished about in his pockets for his room keys. When her fingers brushed warm metal, she pulled them out and tugged him by the wrist so that she could guide him back.

_Talk about taking my job too literally._

Once they'd crossed the plush hotel foyer and entered the elevator, she released her grip on him. Hwoarang exhaled softly and slumped back against the mirrored wall. Lani winced inwardly as they began their ascent. She'd never been comfortable in elevators. Hopefully, this would be a smooth ride.

"I'm sorry." He spoke up, without a trace of remorse. Or delight.

"It's no problem. Really."

"No, I shouldn't have dragged you out here. There are…" He faltered for a while as he fumbled for the correct term. "There are… better ways to deal with this… I think…"

"If they don't involve some sort of alcohol or prescription drug, then you're smarter than I am."

"Heh… hey, you get drugs for this?"

"For?"

"For…" His hands wavered falteringly before he finally settled on pointing both his thumbs at himself. "This?"

"Yeah, they're called anti-depressants. Prozac, Tofanil, Remeron, they're used to treat severe cases of depression and anxiety disorders. But don't think about trying those without a prescription." She threw him a sharp glance for good measure. Hwoarang chuckled. It was a hollow mirthless sound.

" 'Course. How could I have forgotten?"

"Hwoarang, you aren't beyond helping. If it helps, I know you're stro – "

"Stop!" He hissed, hands immediately over his head and tugging at his hair. "Just stop."

Setting her own discomfort aside, she closed the gap between them and pried the fingers from their locked hold on his roots. "Listen to me. Breathe out and let it all go – "

"How do you expect me to let it all go when today's the day I found my mother hanging stone-dead from the ceiling fan in her bedroom?! What am I supposed to do? Fuckin' smile and tell myself that life goes on and I'm supposed to move with it? _Oh right_, yeah, it's supposed to be that damn easy so I must be an idiot not to get it right the first time…"

"Wait, your mother – "

"Yeah… yeah, that's what she did."

The doors slid open with an electronic buzz. Hwoarang scowled to himself and stomped forward, leaving behind a stunned Lani in his wake. As soon as she noticed the doors closing in on her again, she burst out and sped up to his retreating back.

"Hwoarang…"

"Go home, Lani. Remember what I told you about that modeling agency?"

"Slow down for a bit!"

He had already reached his room by then. He had his hand on the lock and was on the verge of wrenching it open until he noticed that it was locked. A metallic rustle made him finally turn around to face her.

Lani's green eyes glinted with the same cool steel as his keys were made off. "I told you to slow down."

He glared, not daring to diminish his pride one bit by caving in to her demands.

"We can do this the easy way by sitting down and talking this over before you run off and do something stupid again. Or would you rather spend this morning sulking at me?"

"I don't want to talk."

"But I'm only a shrink, not a mind-reader, so I would rather you at least give me an opportunity to listen."

"… I don't want to talk…"

"Have it your way then." She shrugged.

She closed her fist around the keys and slid down against the soft cream walls of the fifth floor hallway. Hwoarang swore under his breath and kicked at the door. The first time, it refused to budge. The second time was no different. For his third try, he aimed for the brass handle. This time, the door swung open to grant him access.

Before she could even react properly, Lani found the door slammed shut in her face. The bolt had already been slid into its place inside.

* * *

He'd been foolish to call her at this hour. What had he been thinking?

The answer was now quite evident to him. He'd wanted to be saved like he was some fucked up tragic hero in a play. It irritated him to no end that he was lounging about in this state. If there was a lesson to be learned here, it would have to be to never trust anyone who wore a white coat with a stethoscope or had the nerve to call themselves a 'doctor'. From the minute word had got out that his mother had committed suicide right in their own home, he'd been swarmed with them and their sterile-faced duplicates.

"_I'm sorry for your loss, son. It's a terrible thing to have to go through for anyone."_

_Yeah, right. Like he was supposed to care._

They'd stuck him in some room with bare white walls and asked him questions which they should've already figured out for themselves.

"_How're you feeling today? Are you sleeping well? Eating regularly?"_

He'd stared at them, blank and disbelieving.

"_Are you running a temperature? Let's see, shall we…"_

"_Stick your tongue out now."_

"_Open your mouth. Say 'ahh'."_

"_Lie down here and let me…"_

Prod, prod, prod, poke, poke, and poke until he couldn't take it anymore. In the end, he'd clamped his mouth shut, snapped the tongue dispenser which they were forcing down his throat in half and kicked at the man who'd dared to tell to him to open up and say 'ahh'. They'd be lucky if he ever condescended to say anything more after that. All they could do was come up with a list of things which were 'wrong' with him and make some feeble mechanical attempts at 'fixing' him. He had been a confused, angry, distraught ten year old whose problem had seemed like a disease they'd thought they could cure as easily as a simple case of the measles.

Since then, he'd made it a point to avoid hospitals no matter what. They could throw him in any clinic they like but there was no way in hell that he'd bring himself to throw himself into that den of lions again.

There had been the time when he'd had an accident with a nail gun. It had been spring break; he'd felt the metal tack pierce through the palm of his right hand before the searing pain struck him. It might as well have been an arrow through his hand judging from how fast his ensuing howl had brought Julia to his side. The girl had released a shriek of her own at seeing all the blood.

"Come on. We've gotta get to the ER…"

"No!" He'd spat out, despite the blood beginning to drip down the sides of his wrist. She'd ignored his protests anyway and had dragged him to the nearest hospital. Hwoarang had wriggled, squirmed, fought, argued, whined, groaned and complained the entire time until Julia had promised him a lifetime of further humiliation via a flowery print dress to shut him up.

Finally, the time had come.

The steel-blue pliers had gleamed menacingly in the doctor's hand. The man hadn't looked much older than him, come to think of it.

A smooth hand skimming his bare arm soothed him. "It'll be over in a second."

"I'm not a baby, Julia."

"I know, I know…"

She was mocking him. He knew that smile of hers.

The pliers loomed nearer.

"Jules…"

"I know…"

His free hand clutched hers in a grip so tight it could have given him another reason to visit the ER. It probably must have hurt her just as much yet he didn't hear as much as a squeak from her this time.

With a smooth wrenching movement, the nail was pulled free.

Say 'ahh'? He'd screamed it out right then and there.

"Good. Good job." Her voice was soft in his ear when she kissed the shell. "I'm so proud of you."

He looked down at his now-smooth palm as he lay back on his bed in his lonely hotel room. Not even a scar to remember her by. Funny how the things that hurt the most were usually the ones that were etched deepest in his memory. He couldn't hang onto the better parts of his life. Butterflies with gossamer wings always fluttered away in the end. Dirt always stuck to him, never mind how much he tried to scrub himself clean.

After he'd come across his mother suspended above him in her bedroom, he had collapsed to his knees from sheer fright. He'd seen pictures of angels in storybooks and she could have easily passed for one. He almost expected her to sprout wings at any time then. When he recovered from the sight, the anger had taken over.

The next thing he'd done was to run downstairs and smash those hateful vases of white oleander. The shattering of glass and ceramic ricocheted from each wall of the empty house, reduced to mere static in his ears. White noise, as he'd later found out. When the remaining shards of the vases were reduced to rubble beneath his feet, he'd attacked the flowers next. He plucked off several white petals in one go to make quick work of it. The oleander had been a foreshadowing of the present and for that, it deserved to be destroyed. He didn't stop until each and every petal was crushed between his fingers. Nothing but the fragrance would remain on his hands.

His skin had turned red from all that scrubbing it took to get it off. So _red_…

The door slammed open in front of him. J steadied himself, rubbing the shoulder he'd used to break in.

"They don't make doors like they used to."

"Privacy is overrated." The other man replied.

"Hwoarang!" Lani reappeared behind J. "Please, we have got to get you to a private – "

J deftly cut in. "He can go with you later."

"No, this is urgent."

"He has a visitor waiting downstairs. She says exactly the same thing."

Hwoarang sat up straight suddenly. "Who?"

"A visitor." J repeated. "A woman. She says it's urgent."

That was enough for him to jump to his feet and head out to the elevator. Lani was on his trail once more. "Something you'd like to tell us?"

He didn't bother replying, even when she and J joined him on the ride down. The range of possibilities crossed his mind. A fan seeking an autograph? Christie again? Perhaps she wanted a second chance.

Julia?

He didn't… he _couldn't _get his hopes up. That was too far-fetched a wish to fulfill.

Hwoarang's eyes narrowed as he entered the hotel lobby, searching for the person who sought him. Nothing out of the usual so far, only the usual smattering of porters gossiping in corners and languid guests sprawled about on stuffed armchairs.

He stiffened on catching sight of her. She was pacing the marble floor with her arms folded across her chest, braid of long brown hair swinging with each step she took. Of all people, it just _had _to turn out to be Michelle Chang.


	19. Red

**Hope this goes well and not too shit-tastic. Because you guys are worth every word.**

* * *

**#19. Red**

Flowers in mourning

Morning sun rays bud and bloom

I awake to light

~*~

Rain pours down

Drenching me in cold

Be-_tray_-al

~*~

Leaves are red in fall

Just like my lover's hair

And lo! I'm alive

~*~

My eyes search

Empty rooms, empty heart

There he goes again

- Selected Haikus by **Julia Chang**

* * *

"Were you expecting to see me here?"

"No."

"Do you know _why _I'm here?"

"… I think… no… no, I don't know."

Michelle noted the tightness in the knots of the muscles in his arms and the sharp edges of bone in his jaw-line. He'd grown, matured to some uneven constituency that felt alien on her wary eyes. Last time she remembered, he'd been a boy struggling to come to grips with impending adulthood. All chemical red locks and endless limbs, unstable emotions overlapping painful degrees of shyness at his internal turbulence. And now he was a man, chemical red locks and endless limbs, impassive and endlessly beguiling behind a pair of red-tinted hazel eyes. He hadn't been sleeping much.

The beginning of a question started to frame his mouth, twisting to form a word until he paused, gave in to a doubt sprouting through his thoughts.

"Hwoarang?"

She had to make sure he was listening. Still alive, not a hollow shell left after embarking on a life meant for the restless. The boy barely flinched, cold and unresponsive, his eyes doing the questioning. Michelle saw them cloud with flagging spirit, as if he could read her own disturbance beneath her temperament. She stood up and resumed pacing. It usually helped to have a physical outlet for these things…

"I needed to talk to you about…"

Step, step, step.

"You might find this hard…"

Step, step, _turn._

"… I don't know how…"

Her voice cracked. _Damn it._

An unfamiliar voice slipped in. "Julia."

She stared at him, perplexed that she should have forgotten how his voice used to sound over the years. She'd heard him sing, she'd wondered about the notes he'd crooned to her daughter, so cautious yet still easily amused.

"Julia." He repeated, then closed his eyes, as if waiting for the guillotine to fall.

If Michelle had felt any semblance of pity for those waiting to be executed, she didn't allow it to soften her blow.

"A few months ago, she was in an accident."

Hwoarang waited, hands dug deep into his pockets, nails clawing skin through layers of denim. He waited with bated breath for three words which deliver the final _coup de grace_, the strike that would serve as the last few nails lining his coffin…

_She. Is. Dead._

"She's in a coma."

His eyes flew open.

"A few broken ribs, a punctured lung and some fractures." Michelle rattled off lists that doctors with tired neutral faces had replayed so many times she'd already had them memorized. "No brain damage but… she won't wake up."

Those last four words were the worst thing. They contained hours of weeks spent in desolate hope and failed attempts at raising her spirits as she'd talked, reminisced, dreamed out loud, sang, recited, prayed, begged and pleaded for contact.

"Sleeping."

They spoke to themselves, united only by the presence between them.

Hwoarang remembered why he loved the cold.

* * *

**Three years ago**

He loved how her lips parted as soon as she fell into deep sleep. He loved that she had long eye-lashes that curled upwards as she closed them. He loved the fact they'd been each other's firsts. He loved that she was now resting her head on his chest as the snowflakes gathered on the window-sill outside. He loved how she would sigh in her dreams at intervals as he watched over her with a smile on his face.

He loved so much, without restraint, that it made his heart swell to bursting.

As she slumbered on in sweet Paradise, he formed melodies in silence, with words that he never thought he'd ever use. Her breath smelled like coffee, her hair like green herbs and her skin like musk. He inhaled, shuddering at the warmth that consumed him afterwards. What he wouldn't give to rewind the night so that morning would never arrive so soon. Patches of red were starting to blossom amidst the clouds in the sky or was his mind playing its usual tricks in these early hours?

Without shutting his eyes, he dared to dream. He saw a stage, cheering crowds, and her smile, soft and soothing as an autumn sunrise. He then saw the dregs of his past seeping through the light-filled awnings. White sheets, red blood, smoking black metal, a series of pictures in reverse sapping the warmth from the joy that colored his vision. Colorblind, the lights dimmed and the crowds diminished until all that was left was Julia's sad smile gradually fading into the black. As he reached out to touch the only proof of reality, the scene collapsed and he was left to bleed alone.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness had drowned out the initial cheer. He realized he must have fallen asleep.

Dreaming alone, was that how this song was supposed to go? He'd thought he'd had enough of solitude and casual acquaintances. Was it possible to have more than one guiding light to lead you home? Where was home?

A low exhalation from her throat made him wonder.

_Home._

A home is what you make of it. Whether it's a thatch hut or a marble palace, it's the one who resides in it that counts. As long as he had Julia, he'd always have a place to lay his head down on. And if he wasn't enough to keep her warm then…?

Hwoarang sighed.

He loved rarely. But when he did, it was never a novel fleeting sensation. It weighed heavily, crushed him until he could barely draw in his breath, and left an imprint so deep that fading to the black was out of the question.

Suddenly, as the notion dawned on him, he shivered.

"Hey, what's keeping you…"

He silenced Julia with a kiss.

* * *

"I want you to come back with me."

"… Why?"

"To see her."

Three words, completely different from what he'd anticipated with dread, still sent his head reeling from their impact.

"What…"

"Even I don't know why but I'm running out of options." She ceased in speech abruptly. Hwoarang noticed that she'd stopped pacing.

"You might be the one to wake her up." The older woman finally offered.

He didn't answer, not merely for the sake of suspense but because it had been a while since he'd felt at peace in silence. Slowly, gradually, he lifted his eyes and looked at the colors. Buttercup yellow on the lobby walls, turquoise rhinestones on the cuff of a woman's sleeve, violet peonies in creamy white vases, the orange mahogany of a nearby table, sky blue eyes beneath the chocolate curls of a child sleeping inside a stationary pram…

"Would you?"

He nodded.

Michelle didn't seem convinced. "You've barely even kept in touch with her all this time and look at you now, all eager to make amends."

"That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of her."

"_Thinking _doesn't quite cut it here."

"I know. That's why I want to see her again."

For a second, her glare softened. He noticed how alike they looked, lightly tanned skin and braided brown hair coiled around a tawny neck in spite of the fact that they weren't bound by blood. Perhaps the ties were strongest when you had nothing to begin with except an exchange of names, numbers and notions to break even. Maybe these were what made you try harder to unchain a heart that had remained locked for years on end, what drives you to reach out through the dark for a hand more colder and withered than yours, or what drives every man to twirl like tornadoes through labyrinths filled with women of every kind, ugly or pretty, young lasses or old maids, because he hopes to find one, _just one_, who'll be more than just a night of fun under a velvet sky of stars.

Without ties that bound you to anyone, you were free to allow yourself to choose, to make mistakes and to create something beautiful out of thin air. A friend always stars off as a stranger, a lover sometimes springs from that very same tree of friendship, beauty and pain often grow from the vestiges of emptiness, from nothing in itself. What makes it real is what the heart wants from it, to remain as cherished and protected as it was at the beginning.

As long as you had the courage to start a new chapter in your life, it would always remain.

"I think about her all the time, Michelle. I even dream about her, even when I'm awake. Ever since the day I last saw her, she's been like this hymn I can't get out of my head. You know, it's like, sometimes you don't have to see things to believe them. Because you can't always, you're bound to get blinded at some point. If I was blind before, I know I'm not anymore. What you see isn't always what you feel. Just because I don't see her doesn't mean I can't feel her touch or hear her singing me to sleep. If you can't see someone anymore, it doesn't mean that they're truly gone.

"These dreams I've been having… they're not supposed to be real, right? But does that really matter as long you believe in them. The first time I saw her, she told me that I'd be fine. I didn't believe her then but she's been persistent. But… you can look at me like I'm crazy, but… I think she knew that I needed her. Somehow, somewhere, she felt that I needed her more than anyone else I knew. I don't know how but I think I know why. We had something real. It was true and it was love. I'm sure she must have believed that more than I did. She's like… this hymn that gave me some hope to carry on. You don't forget anything that pure or true.

"I love Julia. It's not past tense. You can't erase anything that real from your heart so easily. And now… I won't let her down again. I promise."

* * *

_I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere… set out to find… this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know? _– Bob Dylan

* * *

Up on the rooftops, Hwoarang stood alone with a smile on his face. The wind picked up, ruffling his loose red locks and shaking out dust on the jacket he wore. Miles away were his thoughts, focused beyond the horizon in the distance. Over these buildings and skyscrapers, away from the hordes of their designer-clad uniform-minded denizens, to a place where he could breathe freely and sing sincerely for the one who awaited his return.

Above him, a swallow, late on his voyage to warmer lands, soared through clouds, dodging wires as it thrilled to its heart's content. Hwoarang no longer envied the birds, wild and free as they were. Further along the line, he knew he would soon count himself as one of them.

"Just a little longer, Jules. Hold on for me."

It was almost as if he could feel her pent-in joy surge through him.

"And I believe in you too."

* * *

_Don't soon forget (between salvation and love, don't drop your arms)/ You're so brilliant (I'll guard your heart)/ Grace marked your heart (With quiet words I'll lead you in and out of the dark)_ – The Unwinding Cable Car, Anberlin.


	20. The Road Home

**Posted unedited so correct me if I'm wrong someplace.**

* * *

**#20. The Road Home**

"I think that if you stare at the stage-lights for too long you'll go blind someday."

"Tell me about it." Han replied to his comment, twirling a pen between his fingers. "But instead of lights for me, I've had to stare at yours and Kim's asses from all the way back where I am. It's always the drummer that gets the backseat _away _from the fans. Except Travis Barker, dude, that guy's everywhere…"

"Shut up, my geeky friend. You should get _your _ass in shape if you want a share of my spotlight."

Kim laughed and J wasn't smoking for a change. It was good to see glimpses of the Hwoarang they'd known coming back into view. He'd even spent the afternoon telling them about The Girl as they'd come to dub her. The story was too achingly sad to be less than a story. It was real, the characters were real and not just two names in a schmaltzy script. The feelings, emotions, trauma, love and betrayal were true. Better than any song anyone had ever written.

"I meant that about the lights though," The redhead spoke as he zipped the duffel bag shut. Packing had taken less than he'd expected. "Just not literally."

"When's your flight?"

"Couple of hours. Any sage advice, O Wise One?"

"Try not to screw yourself over again."

"Trust me when I say that won't happen, J."

The door handle turned and the scent of roses wafted in.

"You'd better mean that."

Lani's green eyes were dimmer than usual and the stray brown hairs had been scraped back into her usual stern chignon. Hwoarang then noticed the glasses and the change of shirt. She'd changed. Back to being his shrink, not his friend. Come to think of it, when had he started to note the difference?

"I thought you could use a lift?" She swung her keys around her index finger.

"Thanks."

Michelle had asked if he could meet her at the airport anyway so he'd mentally prepared himself for another round of goodbyes. 'Goodbye' being the hardest word to say in his dictionary. No modern myth could compete on that level.

"So… I guess this is it."

"Don't be stupid, man, you're coming back, of course."

"If you'll have me."

Sighing exasperatedly, Han wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Hwoarang had to crouch slightly to accommodate the smaller burst of limbs and breath. "Hwoarang, Hwoarang, Hwoarang, I don't where this lack of self-esteem's coming from but I hope that it goes away by the time you're back. Which you _will _be doing by any means even if we all have to hogtie you with a lasso to keep you from running off."

"He's got that right." Kim nodded.

"Hell to the nth Yeah!"

"Han, your nails are…"

It was the nails digging into his shoulder that he had to complain about a split-second later. He couldn't even speak, let alone complain about the three pairs of arms circling him in one tight embrace. He now realized that the lights hadn't completely destroyed his sight. After all, he'd had the best damn blinkers in the world and it would kill him more to let go of them than they would him…

"Guys…"

And his throat was seizing up too. _Oh crap_.

"… aw, come on, guys…"

He'd had enough of tears already.

"Let go of everyone already." J's voice, a dull baritone, registered somewhere. "You're making me feel a goddamn homo."

Hwoarang still managed to catch him wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

* * *

The long drive to the airport was a quiet one. Hwoarang leaned his head against the warm glass of the passenger-side window, wanting to doze off and stay up at the same time. The painted white strips on the road blurred and merged together to form one whole endless line. He noticed Lani's reflection and watched its hand grip the steering-wheel and its tightly pursed red lips. She'd reapplied her make-up.

"What's the occasion?"

"Excuse me?"

"You've freshened up."

"I'm meeting someone soon."

"At the airport?"

She shrugged. "We haven't agreed on anything yet."

The silence was resumed once more, descending down upon them like snowflakes in winter and blanketing them comfortably beneath the calm. He leaned back, closed his eyes and pretended that he was asleep. He'd hadn't any time to doubt the surrealness of recent events and to be frank, he hadn't wanted to. Bursts of electric-hued light interrupted the numbing darkness behind his eyelids as they drove through a sunny spot. He folded his arms and bent his head down.

He wanted to believe that he was dreaming.

"_Is that a scar I see?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Does it hurt?"_

"_Only when you touch it."_

Dreaming or pretending? He could always pretend that he saw her, make up her questions and answers as they went along until he could actually _see _her again. Perhaps it would keep him sated for a while.

"_You're my scar, Jules. But I don't want you to fade so soon."_

"… _Silly."_

After his first attempt at running away, there'd been three more failed attempts. Each time he'd taken a step ahead, the urge to return had been stronger. Eventually, he'd had to settle for smaller acts of rebellion. Fighting the older kids at school, carving his initials into his desk and sneaking in forbidden drags of smuggled cigarettes at break-time. Those especially had tasted foul. He'd thrown up on his first time.

More often, he'd run. He would scuttle past houses, packs of teenagers joking and shoving each other about, trees laden heavy with fruit, a stray dog with only three legs tied up to a chain-link fence, empty parked cars and well-lit grocery stores. Some would stare at him, others would simply ignore him, and nobody asked him what he was running from. When that grew monotonous, he took up creeping. Never once had his mother demanded an explanation for his torn jeans and muddy palms. She'd been too busy learning how to cover her bruises with make-up and lies.

After she died, the growth spurts had taken over. 'Raging Hormones' was what his class teacher had termed his trouble-making. Suddenly, he was eleven, twelve, then thirteen all in one go and he had no clue on what to begin on. His limbs were too long, his voice too high-pitched and the endless possibilities of the fairer sex had yet to dawn on him. Baek had tried to help, no doubt, but the man's childhood was a faraway lesson in empathy. He did try though and Hwoarang felt all the more guilty for that. Unfortunately, they were both beginners in matters steeped in adolescence.

He remembered when Baek had given him his first lesson on landing the perfect hit.

"_Keep your fist tight enough for a solid strike and your arm loose enough for the counter."_

He'd tested it on a scrawny rat of a kid who happened to get on his bad side. The guy's insanely annoying vocal chords had done the trick as he mauled through each verse of a song. Blood, wet when fresh, sticky on his fingers as it dried. The surge of absolute power vanished as soon as the tears began to dribble down the boys cheeks. He'd run away again, crept through holes in hedges and curtains of vines and ended up climbing up a lone tree in the hope that he'd evade punishment this time as well. Splinters embedded beneath his nails, he made his way to the topmost branches, obscured by dark green leaves.

Shrill voices calling his name kept him nestled within his newest hidey-hole. A pair of eyes wide open in curiosity almost made him lose his grip on the bark.

She held a finger to her lips.

_I won't tell if you won't._

He remained, hardly breathing in case he'd break the spell. The world around him had dissolved on impact, leaving him and her suspended in frozen minutes. Her hair was loose, looked like it was unbraided strands of rope. He'd briefly considered running a hand through it so that he could find out if it burned the same. The space between his bared teeth and her bare lips became charged with an energy he'd never known he'd had. A lesser being within him uncurled and stretched its jaws open in a ferocious yawn. This… creature of sorts… _a girl_… would be the cause of his uprising.

Reawakening.

He exhaled as soon as the sun began to dip. The light faded and now she was only human. With a hushed sigh, she slipped out of reach and down the tree she escaped. Thanking the stars for natural lapses in memory, he nuzzled the maroon wool of her abandoned sweater and inhaled more of the dying scent of budding leaves.

Because Baek was an honest man, he'd had to return the garment eventually. Easy said, easier done, he'd traced the slow trembling piano notes to the empty music room at recess. Her hair was braided and coiled this time, around her neck like the hangman's noose on the chalkboard. Sure enough, it was still only a little girl with no one to play with. Her playing was nothing short of horrible and the pitter-patter gossip outside in the corridors clashed worse than ever. He'd read the name _Julia Chang_ on the dust-jacket of her text-book before she heard his footsteps and met his glare.

He would definitely be more careful.

The sweater was dumped in an unceremonious heap on the floor, right where she would see it.

As he turned to leave, a hand grabbed at his shoulder.

"Hwoarang."

He awoke.

They were in a large parking-lot. Around Lani's silver sedan, a fair crowd milled around in the hustle and bustle of entering and leaving. Suitcases, bags and half-filled luggage trolley were scattered over the asphalt like props in a movie. The sky was already violet, darkening to blue with the advent of twilight.

"Dreaming again?"

"Nope. Just remembering my favorite mistake."

"How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know. Until she opens her eyes, I guess." His mouth was dry. Must have been the air-conditioning in the car. "As long as it takes. Haven't seen her in… I don't know…"

_Why did I waste so much time?_

"Lani, if you were in a coma, would you be able to hear me?"

"If you spoke loud enough."

"Seriously."

She turned off the ignition. "She'd hear you. She'd know your voice if you called out. But I'm a psychiatrist, not a doctor. I'm supposed to be concerned with the metaphysical, not the biological process behind these things."

Her mouth twisted in a grimace. "Like I did such a great job with you."

"You tried. I didn't."

"Sure…"

"No regrets, no hard feelings, 'kay?"

"If you say so."

Hwoarang tore his eyes off her and scanned the crowd, imagining stories behind the minor characters of their play, imagining that they'd be viewing him in the same light. In each of their limited ranges of relativity, he was just another pretty face on a screen and they the main players in whatever drama, comedy or tragedy waiting for the epic anti-climax where _everything_ should make sense and yet not at all. The watcher and the watched, the audience and the cast, the major and the supporting, who you were never really mattered as the closing credits rolled.

"Weren't you supposed to meet someone soon? You should get going." He reminded Lani.

"I don't think he'll be showing up anyway."

So she had a would-be lover after all? An unreliable one at that. "Aren't you gonna make sure then? What if he suddenly appears and you're not around when he does? You'd miss out."

"There's no point."

"What makes you say that?"

"He's leaving."

The maroon in her lips, the roses in her scent, the dying glow in her green eyes, everything in her world just _had _to make sense to him at that moment. This was her moment, her anti-climax where everything crashed down with her expectations of hope.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I can do that for myself."

When he still couldn't move, she reached over and flung open the door. Before he could stumble any further on his words, he was out on the concrete ground with his bag and nursing the spot on his cheek where she'd kissed him.

"Thank you, Lani."

The car sped away.


	21. Extortion

**I am so **_**so **_**sorry for the delay. Assignments have me on my toes at college and there's this meeting and that bake-sale… you get my drift? Anyways, thanks for reading. I've been losing a lot of motivation to write fanfiction nowadays but I was browsing through some of the reviews I've got for the last year or so (has it really been that long?) and some of them were more awe-inspiring than my own writing :D. Thanks, guys. I'm so glad I do make some people happy by doing what I do.**

* * *

**#21. Extortion**

The leaves were already turning brown. Some were gold, some were still moss-green. The air seemed a little warmer though when I stepped inside. Behind, wheels turned as beds and chairs were moved from one room to another. Some of them contained people, quiet, complaining, resigned, stubborn, all types to make a world. Victims of violence, some of them were. Some would pillage and plunder through any means possible to end their pain. Pastel-colored prescription pills, sachets filled with morphine, the whole nine yards and beyond. Euthanasia even.

And then there's you. Silent and still beneath your white sheets.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty."

I kiss your forehead, your eyes remain closed. I drag my hand out of my pocket and slide it against the bruise on your shoulder, thinking that maybe a pulse of warmth from my body heat would stir you awake. No such luck.

"Take your time. As long as you like."

Michelle walks away, the grey under her eyes all the more apparent. Somewhere, a leaf falls and a newborn baby cries.

* * *

That day, after I left you at your house, I tried to get out of there as fast as I could. But I looked back and there you were, waving goodbye like an abandoned child. You know what really got me then? Me neither. For a second, I wanted to turn back but… the rain began to fall and I drew my hood over my head. And I was moving on my own accord with nothing to hold me down anymore.

I stopped at the airport and watched the planes come in. I saw this guy across the street, tall and stiff and acting out his own made-up agendas. He would pace, stop, swear a bit for the hell of it, repeat as he liked, this air and flow of nonchalance floating above him like cigarette smoke. Jittery muscles, like he was high on something but not enough for him to completely lose it. I don't think he was lost, like you know, looking for something. Maybe he thought this was all he'd amount to, another body in city full of them, Chock-full, streaming, overflowing, maybe he'd fall out with the excess. He started bouncing on the soles of his feet, he was restless and so hollow that his breaths came out in whispers.

He spun a little as his feet ricocheted off the puddle he'd just splashed. Hair flashing up, down, sideways, around his head, a taut smile stretching his lips. No, not a smile, a grimace seemed more like it.

The water splashed and broke the reflection.

He was me. I was gone.

Starting anew had been harder than I thought. I don't like beginning from scratch. J and Han were familiar so I clung to them. Changes happened, Kim came along and I had to get used to another shadow alongside mine as we practiced. I kept the unease at bay until I could finally accept it. We worked, played, laughed, smiled, joked around like good friends are supposed to do. I guess that's how I coped for a while, keeping busy so that I could take my mind off me.

You know how they say that trouble breeds the best art? It's true and, in our case, it sold. Red hair and brown eyes would have been nothing but ordinary were it not for less-than-perfect souls behind them. People like flaws, more so than perfection. It gives you a kick when you see someone more fucked up than you.

So I wrote and I strummed and I sang and everyone lapped it up and no matter how tired I'd get, the cheers would keep me awake and smiling for the cameras.

_Round and round_

_Down and down we go._

_And the evening light_

_Shall be our only guide._

If I ever did want to drop dead, I'd think of Mum, Dad and Baek and then I'd just keep going like there was no tomorrow. Dove deeper and deeper until I couldn't find my way back up again. Got so used to the dark that the lights blinded me when I got my head back to reality again. We would walk the same paths and I'd notice how our footsteps were out of sync. Han never walks. He jogs, hops, saunters, lumbers when he's drunk or sleepy, occasionally breaking into a stumble if he's really excited. Kim walks, J strolls, each to his own drum and I try to keep in line with them to feel like a part of the gang. But my steps are too fast or not at all coordinated, too slow or straying off the path at some points. It's plain to see as to how _well_ I fit in.

I once tried walking to set my mind at ease. It needed an anchor to settle so I used to walk by the ocean, listen to the waves break and watch the foam rise on each new crest. Even better if it rained. The drops splashing were the drums and the hum of the sea was the bass. I didn't have to sing.

The waves would crash down but I wouldn't stop.

I walked.

I ran.

I tried to fly. _Tried to fly._

When it rained, I'd come back soaked to the bone. J would click his tongue in disgust and give me a new shirt to wear. I'd sit down, my hands around a steaming mug of something dark and strong, keeping the chattering of my teeth at a low. My eyes would close, my head would fall so low that my chin nudged my chest and my mind would wander, this constant state of perpetual motion by which I'd slowly drift away from the present like a piece of flotsam in the sea. Pace, stroll, walk, jog, run, _fly_…

I'd dream about demons at night. Wisps of slithering matter that talked in tongues only I could understand. They'd tell me awful truths about myself which the sea couldn't drown. Alcohol would numb the pain at first, and then amplify it. Drugs would twist it out of proportion. Women made it taste sweeter for the one night that you had them. Then again, they gave me words to croon anyway I pleased. Just sugarcoat the facts and sell them. Showbiz in a nutshell. Girls in songs never grow old because they're only names on paper napkins at the end of a long night. Golden-haired girls, gold-tinted bottles of beer, gold glints as beady-eyed execs take you in. It makes sense.

I'd read your e-mails and listen to your voice the few times you called. Each time, it sounded like you were getting used to me being out of your life. You were moving forward, walking ahead of me and I could still feel the trace of your hand in mine. Each time you called, I'd promise myself to let go and cleanse myself for a fresh start. Each time we hung up, I wanted to run back to your house a thousand miles away.

"_Hey… look over here. It's me."_

"Hey… look over here. It's me." I repeat what you said to me the first time as I watch you sleep. Do you see me now? Could you hear my voice if I sang to you again?

"_I'm so happy that I could get to see you, Hwoarang."_

I wish you could see me now too.

"_Home is where your heart is."_

Cheesy as it sounds, I've found it. Hey Jules, I'm finally home…

"_Walk away with me."_

I close my eyes and follow you as Autumn enters early and leaves us alone in our world of simple joy. The leaves fall and brush past your hair. I envy them. You turn your head and I think I see you smile. Wry, a little sad and lopsided. It strikes me that you're beautiful. For a few moments, my fingertips graze your cheek and you're walking ahead again. Away from me, away from me. Slow down a bit, I wanna see that smile again. This time, it'll be permanent.

"_Is there something… well, anything… that I can do?"_

Come back to me. Believe me when I say that I missed you. Remember me? I'm the guy your mother told you to stay away from. I sure remember you, the one I was bound to corrupt. Remember me and the paper boats I made for you on a rainy day? Remember my voice as I called you by anything but your name? I'll take you on a real boat someday, one which won't sink, and we'll go look at the skyline from the sea.

"_I'm glad you're here. With me."_

"_Good. Good job. I'm so proud of you."_

Maybe life is really all about give and take. You get what you give, you take whatever you find. People want what you have and they do anything to snatch it from you. Maybe you'd just hand it over for the right price. The punishment or reward is usually never proportional to what you did to deserve it. Everything I touch withers and dies. A long time ago, I washed my hands clean. I can still feel the dirt in my veins. Life could be an extortion for all I know. We all inhale the same air but we each deserve something better or worse than we end up with.

But when I'm with you, I see things as how they should be.

Music gives my life a purpose.

You give it meaning.

* * *

The weakening light and the falling temperature drove Michelle back indoors. Her tribe had always been people of the sun. The cold was just another enemy to fight against, like hungry wolves and greedy white men wielding weapons broader than their mindsets. She walked slowly, dragging her steps out to preserve energy and listened to the wind whispering through the leaves.

A draft caught her attention.

The door was still open.

Michelle leaned in and took in the sight. Hwoarang had fallen asleep kneeling at the bed with his head on his arms. Julia lay unconscious still, her soft breathing keeping in time with the heart monitor.

_Any day? Any time now?_

She stood there for a minute or so, contemplating whether to rouse him. Chances were that he was dreaming of her, just like he'd told her. Despite her misgivings, there was a part of her that wanted to believe in him and the lyrical propensity of his words. He had a charm about him that she couldn't remember him having a few years ago. Fame changed people for the worst or so she'd heard. Yet she'd heard sincerity in his tone, a rare trait to display when you were on show. She'd gotten so used to hearing nothing but sterilized half-truths delivered by doctors trying their best to stifle her fears that it had been a relief to hear something so alive and full of color.

Yes, she could see the light. Small as the flame on a candlestick but a light in the dark nonetheless.

A miracle was all she expected. She didn't need to remind him of that new burden on his shoulders.

Michelle shut the door on her way out. The lovebirds needed more time to reacquaint themselves.

* * *

_Jukebox:_ _Stars and Boulevards by Augustana, Walking After You by The Foo Fighters, It's Been a While by Staind and Sail Away With Me by David Gray._


	22. Cradle

**#22. Cradle**

Four years ago

Inside the rain, she felt the world melt away.

It was Julia's sixteenth birthday.

She may as well be drowning. The puddles were as deep and black as the ocean on a stormy night. Her fears streamed down to her feet with the water, swallowing up the dark for the glimmering patches of light from the street. Her toes must be pinched blue now from the moisture. The water had seeped right through her shoes. Sheet after sheet of spring rains dousing her with reminders of the day she'd taken her first breath. She'd been found in a thunderstorm, so cold and shriveled that Michelle had had to wrap her up in the thickest of blankets.

Splash, splash, splash. She'd kicked a puddle. Ha ha ha, she was laughing at the look on Hwoarang's face.

"I didn't know…"

And he was having the time of his life, a grin stretching from ear to ear.

"… I didn't know…"

"Here!"

She jumped into the biggest one she could find. Then again, he couldn't end up more drenched than he was now.

They must have talked at some point, except that she couldn't hear over the laughter. Maybe he must have sung too and she'd joined in when the tune struck a familiar chord within her. The ends of his flame-tipped hair dripped water onto his mouth.

"You have a nice voice…"

"What?"

"I said…" A spell of laughter took over him. Even through his crinkled eyes, she could see them shine, bathed in a warm glow. "You sing well."

"Only when I'm alone."

"You're not alone."

"But I'm with you."

"Don't tell me I'm rubbing off on you."

He ruffled her hair affectionately. Slightly piqued, she reached up and messed his as well. Scattered drops of water glistened like diamonds for a split second before striking the earth. A low rumble from somewhere beyond made them both look ahead.

"What are the chances that we get struck by lightning?"

"High." He flung out his wrist so that the metal clasp of his watch shone in a temporary speck of light. "Let's run."

It was an adventure of sorts, wading their way through knee-deep water as fast as they could. Mud squelched noisily beneath their feet and Hwoarang had to pull a leaf out of her hair once. According to Michelle, tonight was supposed to be a full-moon night where the fireflies would be out. She hadn't seen any so far, no thanks to the heavy clouds pouring buckets above them. No darkness, no moonlight to paint the world in silver, such a magical color.

"What are you thinking about?" His eyes shone questioningly.

"Everything and nothing."

"Ouch. Bet your head hurts."

It didn't, not really. But she let him treat her to a steaming mug of hot chocolate anyway. It was her birthday after all, exact or not. She swirled her drink around, admiring the patterns made by the cream and marshmallows. An idea struck her. She played around with the sweetened foam, using her stirrer as a brush, pushing the marshmallows against one curve of the mug save for two right in the middle until…

"Look, Hwoarang, my hot chocolate's smiling at me!"

"Nice…"

He yawned, a few blinks away from snuggling against the leather couch he was seated in and settling down for a snooze. Like a large ginger cat in a coffee-house, she mused. Except that Hwoarang hated cats, least of all being compared to one. She pictured him hissing, mewling and baring his claws in indignation, giggling as she sipped.

"What's so funny?"

"You don't want to know."

"Spill."

"Nope."

"C'mon…"

"Nuh-uh."

"I'd tickle you for answers bu – " His attempt at speech was stifled by another lengthy yawn. "Yeah. You get it."

Julia chuckled, and then took a lengthy swallow from her mug. She hoped that the hot sweet liquid would fortify her for what she had to say next.

"I've been thinking."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Shut up, you."

Another sip. This time, she almost choked and winded up coughing a fit.

"You okay?"

"Yeah… fine."

Now or never.

"I want to find my parents. My birth parents."

His eyes met hers. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just want to."

"That's not good enough."

"I just want to." She replied stubbornly. Of course, she'd expected that he'd react this way. "Some things don't a reason for you to just do them."

"And what if they still don't want anything to do with you?"

"Then there's nothing to be fixed. We part ways again and move on."

"Tch."

She cradled the almost empty mug in her palms, desperately seeking warmth from the cooling ceramic. Across from her, he leaned back against a cushion, still frowning. A part of her wanted to reach out and tuck the stray strands of copper hair away from his eyes. She already missed seeing them.

"I'd thought you'd understand."

When he didn't answer, the mug was placed back on the table. It was no use deriving heat from the cold.

"Don't you think about your parents, Hwoarang? Sometimes?"

"I do."

"So what's stopping you?"

It was like he was the ocean, deep, dark, mysterious and receding from the smallest touch and she was the nameless child playing on his shores, hoping for a stray random wave to splash her feet. Even the rain had stopped so that she could hear the gap of silence engulfing the space between them.

"Don't you want any closure?"

"Ever heard that saying, 'there's no rest for the wicked'?"

"What on earth could a little boy possibly have done to deserve such a punishment, Hwoarang?"

He didn't even grimace.

"What deed done by a child could be counted as a sin?"

"… Maybe it wasn't my fault."

"Yes."

"Maybe I had no choice."

The blood in her veins must have turned blue from the chill enveloping her body.

"Hwoarang… what did you do?"

He looked up and she saw what she'd been dreading.

His eyes were dead.

* * *

After all these years, the house still stood. A different car in the driveway, different curtains in the windows, new flowers in the garden but still the same paths, nooks and crannies he'd sought shelter in as a child. The basketball hoop was another new addition. So were the three kids clustered around the tough leather ball. Two boys and a girl. The tallest must be the big brother and the girl seemed to be the middle sibling.

A flash of dirty orange flew over the flailing hands of the youngest. Before Hwoarang knew it, the ball was in his hands. Remembering the drill, he took a step back, relaxed his muscles, jumped and released it. One swish of the net and a satisfying thump on the asphalt later, he'd scored three points.

"Neat!"

The kid grinned toothily and bent down to retrieve the spheroid. The older boy gave Hwoarang a suspicious once-over whilst his sister blushed at the sudden emergence of a new, not to mention _handsome_, male on the scene. They both must be in junior-high from the looks of it.

"Hey." He raised a hand, hoping for an easy peace.

The boy raised an eyebrow.

"I used to live in this house when I was a kid."

"Oh."

"Would you like a tour?" The girl interjected a little too eagerly. She was rewarded with a piercing glare from her older brother. Hwoarang shook his head in amusement. Girls…

"No, thanks. Wouldn't want to bother you."

"I've seen you somewhere!" The kid cut in, panting like a zealous puppy, the same grin splashed across his face. "On TV!"

"Yeah, I'm in a band. Good call."

"Awesome!"

The other boy scowled. Definitely not a fan.

He briefly wondered what it would have been like to have siblings. On the other hand, he could barely have looked after himself let alone another fragile being under the same roof with parents like his. These kids were lucky. They seemed content at being what they were: children.

"Where do you live now?" Big Bro inquired, perhaps hoping that he'd be able to escort him there.

"Nowhere, really."

"You don't have a house?"

"I don't have a home. At least… I thought I didn't until some time ago."

"Then what brings you here?"

"… Closure."

Big Bro's eyebrow almost disappeared into his thick black hairline at the answer.

"My room used to be…" Hwoarang continued despite the intensified scrutiny. "Right up there. With green shutters."

He pointed to the little alcove above the porch. The youngest beamed.

"That's my room now! I'm AJ!"

He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, then… AJ. That's a cool name."

"It stands for – "

A smaller hand smacked her mouth shut. "Shut up, Shiuan!"

"Are you guys Chinese?"

"Taipei." Shiuan giggled.

"What's your name?" he asked the sulking male teen. He received a shrug in response. "I'm Hwoarang."

"So, Hwoarang, do you have any good memories here?"

With the advent of the girl's innocent question, the impact of the rest of his past dawned on him. He had spent many a night alone in the little alcove above the porch, strumming on his guitar to blank out the words in his father's slurs. Almost every night, he'd lain awake, forced to listen to the sounds of clothes ripping and the pained whimpers his mother was made to utter beneath the weight of her husband. It seemed that the noise would get louder night after night and no matter how hard he'd clamp his hands over his ears, _it just wouldn't end_.

He had crawled into bed to seek refuge under the covers. The tired moans had begun to escalate into tortured screams, yanking claws into the base of his spine, rough hands groping his aching chest…

"_Please stop…aah… enough, please…"_

The slap and the resulting howl ripped apart the floorboards and exploded all over him, throwing off the sheets and covering him in a heavy sheen of sweat. There was now only one image in his mind and it nothing to do with the consequences that would follow. Her agonized groans spurred him further down the hall, into their empty room, past the made bed and into the dark abyss of the closet. His hands closed over familiar metal, the cold smoothness reminiscent of his previous year's discovery. His mother's terrified eyes bored into him like glowing shrapnel. He pressed down on the trigger.

Sometimes, his skin would still itch from the impact of drops from his father's blood and mother's tears. Smooth, warm and acidic, burning holes right through his skin.

"_Wha… what have you done, Hwoarang?"_

He finally returned Shiuan's curious gaze.

"Not a lot."

Sunshine, white flowers, gauze curtains brought him back to where he'd lost his childhood. As his eyes swept over the fresh paint on the walls, he couldn't help the hope ebbing away. Closure, that was what he'd always wanted. Closure, a happy ending to this book. Instead of gardenia and oleander, he found carnations, tulips and… roses. White ones. Scattered over the grass like patches of clouds.

"They're beautiful."

"Our Mum loves gardening. Didn't you have any of these when you lived here?"

"No, my Mum… wasn't really a fan of color."

The petals felt faint and delicate under his fingertips, almost as if they'd drift off if he was too rough. Hwoarang remembered a kiss shared under autumn skies and staring into eyes so alive they'd danced even when he held their owner still. The sky was clear today.

"… Are you okay?" AJ asked, childlike concern tingeing his tone

A fresh tear had stained one white petal. He carefully plucked the rose by the stem and raised it to his lips.

* * *

_Grow me a garden of roses/Paint me the colors of sky and rain/Teach me to speak with their voices/Show me the way and I'll try again_

_Without you I'm nothing at all/And life has the face of a morbid game/With you nothing seems impossible/It all seems to fit the frame_

- Roses, Poets of the Fall


	23. Candy

Sadly, I know I could have done better. A tad dull but there were some parts I did like. Oh well, hope you guys forgive the long absence from this fic and concrit is always welcome.

* * *

**#23. Candy**

I sometimes dream I'm awake.

It's summer and I'm twelve years old, out in the field behind my grandmother's house. There's not much to remember her by except an empty plot of land and a garden overrun with weeds. Ashes, ashes, Grandma's spindly old body is reduced to a pile of white powdered bone and skin inside a copper urn. Ashes, ashes, pouring into the shimmering golden waters of the river. The land giveth, the land taketh.

She died a few days shy of my birthday. The circle of life and death was complete.

My careless hands wallow carefully through curtains of leaves and stems, past the thorns, reaching for the roses in all sorts of colors. Baby pink, sky blue, and lush cream, like saltwater taffy fresh from the boardwalk. Pretty swirls of sweetness tempting me past the veil, sugar-frosted wishes I never knew were real. Yet they all taste the same, temporary spurts of saccharine which my leave my mouth drier than before. Always the same, always the same, the petals made of crinkled candy wrappers, twisting around my little fingers.

"Julia, Julia, don't play with the thistles."

But there I go, there I go, plying its prickly skin with songs of sunshine and rain. The poor ugly unwanted thing, all alone beneath the shade of the tall proud daffodils and carnations, soft downy flowers yet to blossom. It retreats and I follow, none the wiser, determined to break its curse and free its cries. I give it a name, write it a sonnet, compare it to a summer's night, burning feverishly bright with a hollow flame as I dance barefoot around, skin burning under the fire.

It blooms red, red, red, valentine hearts and cuts that crisscross my palms. The thought of opening up stings me more than it does him.

We dance our merry way through the summer and the next one and the next one, the sun burning wildly through the white-hot gloss of our hair, our eyes fluttering in time with our pulses. By and by, my mother's warning fades until it's nothing but invisible vapor against our sky. Love, love, la-la-la-love is a beautiful thing, an indefinable thing, keeping my feet warm and his heart happy.

Cue the music, the bells, the strings, life is wonderful…

… _was_ wonderful.

Who knew my thistle could look so lovely in the winter sunlight? My sweet dim light, arms wrapped around my cold shoulders, the glow in your eyes so pure and true. Who knew, who knew, our secret so hidden from the world and all its harms. Thistle, thistle, but you had to grow so distant, returning to the dark of the everlasting night.

My feet ache and my eyes burn. My voice gives way, spent from calling out to a sylph that won't answer and my heart aches for the colors that you have yet to reveal. Love's on the line, dangling from the thread, threatening to snap loose from the weight of us.

I sometimes dream I'm alive.

Painfully so.

I dream of autumn and falling leaves, copper and gold. They drift past my hair, brushing my cheeks like how softly your fingers do, reminding me of time in an hourglass and the spicy scent of dying firs. The Fall arrives, you and I have changed. Youthful lines of laughter on our cheeks replaced by skeleton bone. A bit by bit, each layer strips away, disintegrates in my hand, crushed between your fingers, heartbeats ceasing, da-dum, da-dum… da-dum… da-dum… da… dum…

All I have is silence until my songbird ventures to thrill again. Hesitant, confused, faltering, whispers of stories within stories, leaving me to grope for the false bottoms beneath his ensnaring words and revealing clues to the mystery he remains. My wily enigma, my lost soldier, my broken boy…

When it thrums loudest in my ears, I fill in the gaps with my own pen and ink. Staining pages with blue, endless sentences and forgotten full-stops. Ellipsis-laced verses confessing what I dare not say when it's so quiet and all I hear is my pen weep inky tears. My own cries and sighs are stifled within the confines of the shaky smile forced on his lips and gentle caresses of his hand over mine. But I taste every drop, every single unshed one, in the trail of his wanderings.

'_Dark blue, dark blue, have you ever been alone in a crowded room?'_

Jack's Mannequin, Andrew McMahon, anything to take my mind off from the fallen leaves at my feet. Honeyed vocals soothing the harsh truths they recall but my heart still remains beating weakly in his hand. Rachel Yamagata, Vienna Teng, smoky soloists that dare to define what I'm too blind to see. This heart of mine, lined with cracks as deep as the blue in the fresh ink dripping down the paper.

"Julia, Julia, we _told_ you to keep away from the fire."

But the flame is burning out without me, the sprightly orange giving way to tarnished soot. And beneath the blackened figure of the chimney-sweep is a star.

One night is all we need and I promise I'll hold on 'til after the morning comes, I promise, I promise, _I promised_.

The sun rises and he's gone. Empty, my hand waves him off.

It's here that I want to stop dreaming and remain sleeping, numb and forgotten by the cold. But I awake and it still envelopes me with mist and mourning white flowers. I want to stop remembering the pain we've been through and embrace the new beginning we could create. I want to awaken, _really_ awaken, reach out and tell you that I can _hear_ you _so close_ and that I'd give everything I've got just to wake up to you by my side.

I want you to know that I'm _alive_.

And in spite of the cold and the pain, I _will_ find my way through to you.

I'm not there yet but I'm on my way.

* * *

He placed another kiss near her mouth, grazing the jaw-line. A week so far and nothing good or bad had surfaced. Whether it boded well for her or not was something he couldn't determine for sure.

White roses, symbols of purity and innocence, lay on the bedside table. They'd been a present from Shiuan, the girl having taken pity on him in her mother's garden. Lying next to him, Julia remained unaware of the flowers or the songs he sang to rouse her gently. Her long dark hair, the secret envy of almost every girl at school, pooled around her head and melded into his ruddy mop on the pillow. Still breathing, her breath warm on his cheek.

"I love you."

He believed that she'd listen.

"Love – " Between kisses to her lips and chin. " – you."

She slept on, unresponsive.

"… Persephone?"

A sharp tapping at the window made him raise his head to the sun where a pair of swallows had settled on the sill. They weren't new to him and he'd already told Julia about the nest they were building. In it lay three tiny eggs, smooth and in the palest shade of pink. Watching the parents croon and fuss over their makeshift home, Hwoarang realized that it may have been the first time in years that he'd cared to let his sight focus on anything like it, let alone even notice it in the first place.

"It'd be a good name for a song, Jules. But I can't quite catch the words…"

One of the birds flew off, leaving the other behind to watch over their brood.

"I miss you."

Another kiss, another round of silence, three words hardly enough to contain the strength with which he meant them. He had been sleeping fitfully over the past few days, dropping in when it was too late and waking up too early without so much as a sign from her. It hurt, to be this achingly close and so far at the same time.

"Can you really hear me?"

Huddling closer to her, half-afraid of the deafening quiet, he still refused to give in to the doubts that surrounded them both.

* * *

Other times, I just dream I'm alone, caught between winter's thaw and spring's advent.

I'm asleep and awake at the same time, tongue dry and heart too heavy for my chest to bear. I'm dreaming of castles and confetti and taffeta dresses, everything I'm not supposed to be, a princess in pink, a damsel in distress. Above my head, the flowers sway, mocking me with their fake candy grins and pearly-white lies strung in their verses.

I'm dreaming that I'm losing what's left of my sanity. I'm dreaming that I'm not dreaming, that this is real and I'm lost forever.

"… _Persephone?"_

So, is this it? Am I fated for the eternal dark of the Underworld, those faint summer songs crumbling to humble echoes before Hades' throne? And then I bring to mind the letter I sent to her, my birth mother, the ink black and the calligraphy crooked from the quivering pen in my hand. This, I let pass with the months of no reply, no signal to let me know if she ever even bothered to split the seal apart on the envelope. No, no, no, she forgot and I let it pass like good ol' Plain Jane would do.

Queen I am not.

But loved I am.

I think.

"_Ju… li… a…"_

Voices break through the fog, violets through the snow. I'm dreaming I'm alive. When was the last time I felt so?

"_Julia…"_

Bells are ringing in my head and I curl in closer to myself lest the chimes escape. Pulse rushes, heart fumbles, both stammer the words which have slipped from my throat. H-H-H-Hello? Are you listening? Do you hear me, love?

The petals tremble. I cannot move. Wherever the ache stems from, it has me bound to this frozen skyline, facedown in the grass, its sweet perfume lulling me to surrender. I can hear the ocean pound its way through my ears, its mysteries unfolding in the hollow spaces. Icy clouds hover lower, breathing down my neck…

* * *

He had gotten used to checking her wrist for a rapid pulse, anything to let him know she was still _here_. Don't get your hopes up, they'd told him. Don't set yourself up for a fall. Another one.

Hope was often akin to sparks. All it took was one mistake to set everything ablaze, from promises to plans, all set to burn within bonfires.

To dare. Or dare not. Where was the solution?

Every now and then, she would sigh in her sleep and his bleary eyes would shoot open, searching for the elusive light. Exhausted from those countless hours, he waited, murmuring scraps from his lyrical ragbag. Hope was still alive, kept burning by the very first time they'd met in that field, her smile the last thing he wanted to let go of.

Persephone, Persephone, the maiden burdened with a great and terrible destiny.

"Let me rewrite the ending."

The rhythm beneath her skin remained steady as always.

* * *

"_Julia, Julia…"_

It feels like winter. I taste frost in the air.

Winter could be beautiful too. Once upon a time, someone told me that.

Didn't you?

"_Julia, Julia, try a little harder."_

I do. 'Harder' soon has me seeing stars and gasping for breath. So tired, I'm so tired.

Just as I back down, a spring of warmth flashes inside me.

"_D'you remember the first time I held you like this?"_

It ebbs, it disappears, it returns, it recedes. But I haven't forgotten. I don't ever want to.

"_Can you feel it?"_

His arms grip tighter. A better place beckons to me, where I can rest my wary head. I think I'm almost there. Maybe not today but I'll be there soon. I promise, love.

Queen I am not.

But loved I am.

I know, love. This time, _I know_.


	24. Good night

#24. Good night

**7 years ago**

One of the courtyard walls had become a wayside haunting for vines. Baek had ignored it at first, letting the trespasser inch its way up and over brick and cement. It was an odd thing, this vine. A long snake-like stem, plain green and thick as a child's wrist. Given more time than he would have normally done, it had sprouted leaves, not flowers or fruits. The most superstitious amongst his class whispered about 'omens' and 'intruders'. One of them had even pressed the thick handle of a machete into his palm, offering to hack away at the plant himself if Teacher had very little time to spend.

That machete was still lying about somewhere. Perhaps under a bed or thrown into the persimmon tree further down the road. He looked back, expecting a tell-tale gleam of dull metal masquerading as a shaft of light through the foliage. Or maybe… most likely… but even if he loathed to believe it…

Perish the thought.

He inserted the key into the lock, turned it, felt the soundless shift of pins sliding out of their places. Fifteen years since he'd bought the place and he'd kept it running better than water through a mill. Getting used to the house, all its quirks and cracks in the ceiling, the loose floorboard on the stairs, had been quite an experience in itself, one which he found more enjoyable than expected.

There had once been fixing to do and Baek had undertaken the task with no light heart. Hammering nails, polishing floors, plugging holes with paint, covering up the cracks with little save the scraps of cement left over from after he'd built the wall. It was a sanctuary, if not a home, where he could hold court over his loyal young students clad in makeshift armor of white cloth and black belts. He would watch over them under the guise of an enlightened instructor, still musing in guilt on if they did know what he already did. That indeed, uniforms could add to the equation and help sum them up to be the best of men and fighters on the chalkboard. Throw life into the sphere of quadrants and the variables would inevitably shift, changing the answers.

Over the years, the boys had weathered their own personal storms, some defining it through rash thought and action, others defined by it. On to college, on to war, on to the backstreets where they came from, they carried their scars under their coats and pulled them out with a flourish if anyone asked. Baek kept his hidden along with the rest of his mistakes, like the countless cracks in the walls he'd glossed over with a coat of sheer varnish. And whether they knew it or not, he kept his fair share of theirs, especially the ones they'd chosen to discard. Everything from the petty jealousies to the deeper fissures of betrayal.

To realize the sins of a world, one should look no deeper than into the hearts of its sons. The used, the unloved, the strange strays of youthful flotsam that cling to pieces of broken driftwood with violent yearning. No matter how aloof the boy, Baek could only return to the kid's flung-off memory of a mother too ill-used to put her children through the same 'love' that had borne her wounds stinging with the salt of unwept tears. Shamefully, he could only recall his own mother in a film of technicolor, a smile preserved in family photographs taken when he was too young to truly remember.

But he knew that, unlike him, some of these young men would go to the opposite ends of recollecting, losing that precious memory of a mother in the background of their lives' bullet-holed mysteries. He had evidence of Hwoarang's indiscretions. He'd picked up the shreds of whatever 'rememory' the boy released accidentally through a misfired shot of his mouth. The paper trail led to what he understood now. Hwoarang was guilty of one crime alone: loving the wrong woman in the wrong measure.

Found guilty at nine for patricide. Layman's definitive: saving your mother by planting a bullet in your father's skull. Baek supposed it could have been love on some terms. The boy had woken up because he'd heard his mum scream _because_ she was being raped by his dad. All he needed was a foolish spark of courage, the catalyst, to remind him where the gun was and how to pull the trigger. Stupid boy, brave boy, a worthy son who didn't deserve his lot.

Hwoarang had been ten when he arrived here, fresh from his mother's suicide. An elfin face framed by dark hair turning stringy from lack of washing and holes for eyes. Of late, Baek had seen those hollows take on a light. Something base and flickering but a light all the same. Hwoarang was crashing through adolescence a year at a time, one wreck after the other. There was truth in thirteen year olds testing any limit they could but at this rate, Hwoarang seemed to have given up on speed-brakes altogether.

Images of screeching cars and burning metal clouded his thoughts. The lack of these sights and sounds, or any other noise in fact, soon had Baek's senses on edge. The training hall was empty, the house was quiet.

Hwoarang had returned.

Today's misdemeanor had resulted in a boy's broken nose, parents demanding swift recompense and frustrated teachers at their wits' end. The complaint ended on a desperate note, calling his young ward to a school summons as soon as what was deemed possible. Taking care not to step on the squeaky loose step at the foot of the stairs, Baek ascended. He was still learning how to tread carefully around a patched-up excuse for a child.

Baek didn't need to knock at the door. Accepting the rules of _his_ house had been Hwoarang's part of the bargain, even if he didn't always comply with them eventually. Stepping into night-time darkness, Baek involuntarily sniffed the air for clues. Sweat earned from running away, moss from hiding down another hole.

"I heard about what you did today. Anything you have to say?"

He added the question without demanding a response. He already knew what was coming. The boy-child lying on the bed would present him with a long listless stare, the light brown eyes dulled to muted ocher, and then shake his head regardless.

"Nothing at all."

If there was disbelief in his voice, Baek didn't allow it to show. But Hwoarang was edging closer and closer to adulthood, however strewn with ashes the road was, no matter how steep the drop over the cliff appeared and no, no matter what the cost, he would see to it that this friendless boy would escape the rocks that awaited him.

"You can't keep going in this direction anymore. Not while I'm around, not as long as you choose to remain here." His gaze drifted to the red sweater Hwoarang clutched to his chest. "Pull yourself together. _Now_."

The catch worked. Uncurling, unfolding, Hwoarang obeyed quietly. Baek plucked at the sweater, noticing the style and cut of the unfamiliar piece of clothing. Definitely not his.

"Whose is this?"

He could tell Hwoarang wanted to lie, tugging at his end of one long crocheted sleeve. A struggle waged, caught between the weight of a promise and the depth of a secret.

"Whose sweater is it, Hwoarang?"

"… Some girl's."

Baek sighed. He'd understood that things had to reach this point in time sooner or later. The dirtier part of growing up, where sidelong glances were mistaken for puppy love and beautiful strangers were just what they were. He didn't fear as much for Hwoarang's misplaced target of affection as he did for what changes could wreak havoc on him later on. Love was no playground game for the lonely. The rules changed faster than you could make them up.

"Tomorrow, you're going to the principal's office and taking whatever punishment they give you. Again. And you shall return that sweater as well." As much as he could admonish, he knew there was only so little that deaf ears could comprehend. "We're not done yet. I'll speak to you later…"

He left the room, rubbing his temples, leaving Hwoarang with the dark. Again.

Eyes glazed under the lids, he pulled the covers over himself and his new comforter. When Hwoarang was finally sure that no one, _no one_, could see what he could really descend to, he pressed the wool to his lips. Warm, fuzzy, clean and mouthwatering where he bit into it. His cheeks flushed, the heat evidence of the happy wrongness of what he was doing.

Practice kisses. Goodnight, girl.

Just this once. The sweater and its owner would be banished from his mind by tomorrow.

* * *

"_Hello there."_

Hwoarang had come to think of Agony as the Omega. The end of the end, beginning of the start of Misery. The dream may have been back but he was crawling out of the water this time.

"_Can you not hear?"_

He could, loud as ever before. But this time, he would wait for the end. This chapter of his story _had_ to come to a close. Now.

"_Not that far off…"_

He knew that. It was never too far from him, its breath never too faint on his neck, the rise of its nail never too deep under his skin. But he waited for it to duly arrive, the looming shadow peering over his shoulder at work, play and sleep. He could tell himself that this was another dream, another nightmare to jot down in bridges and choruses, verses he'd feed to the public furnace later on.

Pain, Sorrow, Memory, and Agony the crux, they had each been a dutiful muse whether he had called for them or not. In return, he had allowed them to manifest in bodies of script, their words in bold, highlighted in black, the shade of grievance.

"_Closer…"_

Come, he mouthed. Come.

It was here, dear Agony. In the breeze, around the air, whistling in his ears, inhaled through his lungs, it was spinning, whirling, a dervish spinning its magic. A cackle, a roar, _a wail_.

This time, he had it by the throat. He squeezed harder, tighter than it ever had him, felt dead bones breaking in his grip. Inhumane captor of his, its gasping maw snapping at him, teeth flaring, voice reduced to a bark. He held on, mouth twisted in joyless recrimination, glare accusatory, watching in dismay as familiar faces stared back in horror.

But he held on. Wouldn't let go.

Not yet. Not now. Not until…

It broke in his hands, he was awake and tangled in himself. The morning was early, the skies were dark and he was the longest way from fear than he had ever been. Ever. Forever ever? Would it stop sometime?

Above all, routine called him to his usual wandering. His feet carried him over each crack in the pavement and hole in the road until he gasped, taking off flying. Soaring above, _through_ the scattered ashes of his past. He was burning them now with each laugh he let escape. Running past the flowers, the homes, the restless days and sleepless nights.

When he ran out of breath, he let perspective put him back into place. He wasn't _there_, he was… here. Back where he wanted to be. In this story, the girl had a name. He'd thought she'd lived in a tree until he found her crumpled beneath the fence next door, where the vines grew. He'd also thought that he could learn to erase her, line by line, until all she was when she remained was a stain on the wall.

No doubt, he'd failed. Countless times, actually, but those were too far from what he needed now for them to be brought up.

So he began again. Flying away from a bed in a lonely hotel room. Flying home to another rising sun, flying and hoping he could return with her today.


	25. Fence

Warning: A for Ambiguity. Cue for Confusion.

* * *

#25. Fence

The first clue had been picked up with clarity. It was that fence walling them in that did the opposite, tricking the mind into believing that it needed to escape. Red brick, fermenting cement the color of wet earth, the warning signs flashing on the wings of a scarlet Monarch. Barely twenty-one then, Michelle could hardly quell the restlessness that sprung with the vine.

There had just been something about that day, February feeling so unusually bogged down in heat. Humidity had the house soaked in trepidation, from the paint peeling off the walls to the steam fogging the bathroom mirrors. The introduction to the storm was being written as she ran a brush through her hair, as she whispered a word of warning to the plants swinging precariously in the hanging bowls over the porch. Machines thrust into space and beyond could calculate and analyze all they liked but the earth and sky mirrored each other. A tremor beneath one and then, a rumbling from above.

"Terrible thing, this weather." The old neighbor fanned herself, the effect leaving her cheeks wet and rouged. "You think there'll be one of them twisters comin' along?"

Michelle shook her head, masking uncertainty. There was no danger approaching surely but things happened.

She often found it difficult to fall asleep. This night was no exception from the rest, alone in her bed with the blanket inevitably landing in a cream-white heap on the floor. It was uncomfortably warm, more so because she couldn't keep herself anchored to one side for the sheets to cool down without her body heat to compensate for the lack of it. After another odd-score round of half-sleep fits, she awoke fully and sat up with her chin resting on her knees, hands sweating and clasping each other at the wrist. Out in the garden, the storm had arrived.

This sound, the noise of water tapping at windows didn't annoy her as much as it used to, when she was young enough to imagine that something else wanted in on her secrets. Michelle Chang, twenty-one years old and still collapsing on an empty bed in an emptier house. For a while, she sat alone and felt ashamedly relieved that her mother wasn't around to see this void. In the house, in the bare trellis in the garden, in her own heart.

Surely she had other blessings to be thankful for. The roof keeping her safe from a heaving sky, the bountiful soil her gardenias thrived on, many more she couldn't possibly recollect at the moment because it was _because_ she had so many, right? But look here, the heart beats, the heart feels but the heart does not truly live as itself. It provides and works itself to the bone for the world, not allowing time for the hole to heal until it was time to rest.

But there were others worse off than hers, other lonesome hearts that turned vice to comfort and vice versa. The cat wailing outside, for instance, had no place to go but the streets when it rained and now it had probably gotten its leg caught in the gutter. She would go down to it, release the creature from its trap and the good deed would do its work by plugging the hole for as long as it could. Never mind the anorak, a little water never hurt anyone before.

Mother would have frowned at this foolhardiness.

Not bothering to fish through the hall closet for a flashlight, Michelle ventured alone into the dark. Guided by the wail, she found the voice shrill and oddly pained. She moved quickly, on the verge of breaking into a run were it not for the puddles forming.

Ah, trapped under a blanket here? How on earth did…

It screamed. Michelle recoiled at the sight. The baby's skin was mottled, turning frightfully blue from the cold water that had soaked its covers and all she could see of it was the wrinkled mouth pursed into the starting pitch of another howl. Giving herself a rough mental shake, she scooped up the bundle from the bottom of the gate and rushed back inside without another thought. She whipped off the tattered rag the child had been abandoned in and gave its cheeks a firm rub. The skin blushed pink before slipping to pallor again.

It would take her hours into the night and well past dawn to feed the warmth back into it. Now that its breathing wasn't ragged nor its limbs as stiff, she could take her time with this new wonder. Feel its throat pulse with life, how soft its downy hair was, see its lashes curl underneath its closed eyes, see how Lilliputian its nails are next to yours.

A sense of duty was the one thing that propelled her to the nearest clinic. That and she really did want to know if the child could turn out all right. Two hours of waiting only to cumulate in the doctor spinning the infant - a girl it seemed - about in his hands with a bemused air before proclaiming that she seemed well-recovered for a waif. Michelle found him too cheery for her liking, as if he'd spent much of his working years incubated in the womb of his practice and hatched out recently from that self-made egg.

He scribbled a note on his pad as she mimicked the correct way to handle the child like he'd shown her earlier. "Now when you get to the Pediatrics ward, here's a…"

"Excuse me?"

He repeated slowly, forgetting the condescension in his smile. "When you take her to the Pediatrics to give her in, you'll be expected to…"

Michelle tuned him out at the turn this discussion was heading into. In return for his time and advice she realized she'd already known she painted a thankful expression on her face to disguise the smirk she was pulling right under the sanctity of his sterile walls.

She walked right out, knowing that neither she nor the child in her arms would ever return.

The heat must have dried itself out from yesterday's wave. The air, so moist and hot from the day before, had cooled in the shower that had arrived to wash her garden clean. The timing had never been better, now that the baby would gradually learn how to crawl, and then walk her way through the beds of flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees on her own. Oh, how Mama would have laughed at her daydreaming, all her little hopes for her daughter already taking root in that vacant space left by the heart-hole, patching itself up in due time.

Michelle walked up to the first bed and squatted low enough for the baby to see. "These are marigolds."

It… _she_ listened solemnly, squinting at the orange-red petals.

"And these," Turning to the row of dwarf trees. "Are roses. Would you like that to be your name? Rose?"

Michelle imagined a frown creasing the tiny forehead. "No, I thought not. You're much stronger than that."

From the corner of a glance, she noticed the vine protruding thicker and greener than ever, climbing one step on the trellis. Perhaps she would have to trim it when the baby began to explore.

"Let's go inside. I'll think up a name for you, and you can learn to tell me more about yourself. When you're older…"

* * *

Michelle read the title of Julia's book and was puzzled.

"_Wuthering Heights_?"

"Yes, Mum."

"But you're twelve."

"No, Mum. Thirteen in February."

"That's next year."

"In three months."

Keeping the sigh to herself, Michelle supposed it was for the best. While other girls were out loitering in malls, shoplifting pots of lip-gloss from drugstores or passing round a smoking joint in an empty playground, Julia was safe at home, huddled with Catherine and Heathcliff beneath the shade of the new brick wall that had come up between them and their neighbor, a gruff man who schooled young men in violence addressed as 'art'.

Still… she could never remember her adolescence lilting this quiet a tune. Any quieter and it'd have been mistaken for a dirge. Julia had always been a peaceful child growing up but ages in double figures drew upon a sullenness that Michelle found alarming. It was hardly a scowl than a non-reply which upset her more. She could barely read the girl's subtle shift in moods, much less the fantasies that wound themselves round her head, the ones that left her alone and outcast.

"That's a strange vine growing there. It hasn't borne anything so far…"

One attempt at conversation, to gain one step further to that dream.

"It's growing leaves, Mum. At least."

Quashed.

Michelle would soon learn to stem the worry surrounding her daughter's silences and channel it to deeper concern once she was tall enough to peer over the wall. Each year, each book adding to the stack on Julia's bedside table, when the training-bras were discarded in favor of B-cups, how long it took Michelle to notice that curved junction between her baby's new hips and waist, was it then when she knew she had to be careful where she stood.

Julia may have donned the safety-net of a bookish pair of glasses and layers of denim to preserve her innocence but it wasn't enough. The boys still looked, watched her grow in potential as the autumn waned to winter. Trust had become a liability between mother and daughter. There were times when Michelle would pick up the book she'd read once ago as a girl vulnerable to imagination and unwillingly picture Julia traipsing through moors in seeking illusions of romance. She would be gone for hours at a time, leaving her to watch the vine leaves encircle the last square inches of the division.

Just because Baek Doo San trusted his boys didn't mean they had earned hers. One in particular.

That day in Fall had lived up to its name. Snowdrops drooped from their stalks, their pale heads weighed down from either frost or fright at what had preceded their shock. The leaves had fallen from her trees and buried themselves in tombs of snow. But the vine thrived, the leaves revealing their true nature as ivy. A creeper.

_Creep, creep, creep_.

It had taken all it could to keep Michelle at the window, viewing them through a gap between the glass and the ledge. Julia's plait of hair flowed freely from her loosened jacket, her lashes curled over closed eyes as she kissed him back, biting into the forbidden apple over the barrier. His red hair seemed to flash a warning she willfully ignored, lost in a heroine's fantasy.

Michelle could hear the storm, the buzzing of thunder between those whispered words. Lightning burned raw and it never struck in the same place twice.

If Julia could see what she saw…

* * *

The ivy had flourished until it conquered the entire wall. It laughed in wind-tongues, mocking blades and poison snapping at its leaves. It flowed over both sides, keeping the secrets entrusted to it in niches caved in with loose tendrils that held tight to their bounty. While Julia slept comatose, the tangled forest where her childhood companions, the faeries and elves once more real to her than most of her flesh-and-blood peers, awoke in the morning to a change in their strata.

Imaginary, Michelle told herself she was imagining it.

One by one, the buds peeked from and disappeared into their covers. She peered closer, tasting the spark in her breath. Pollen, a scent… flowers? With a trembling hand, she lifted the veil of resisting vines. Petals, breaking through harlequin calyxes, golden, violet, cherise and white. A cloud loomed nearer, reshading them in softer muted tones. Yellow, purple, pink and grey. Remember that hope is a dangerous thing. Remember that change was its progenitor.

Change. How the word chimes!

Before she could second-guess, she could _tell_. She could feel it. She knew the secret was out and now she couldn't stop the tears.

She knew. Julia _knew._


	26. If only I could make you mine

**#26. If only I could make you mine**

Notice how your eyes will always give you away. The color of autumn, the fall, almost red around the edges. You're made of blood, your smile stretches an inch further before it gives way to a shudder and that is when they come alive, your eyes, you're looking at me like you'd never see past the millions of hard-won smiles that line our paths.

And if death keeps us apart, then what is the answer to the question that you ask with a glance, an arrow hitting its mark, still clinging onto hope that you'd look at me like that again.

Don't ever tell me your name again because it hurts too much to hear it echo and how I see that quake in your eyes that tells me you're losing me because no, love, no, that's not gonna happen, it won't be the end just yet and you know that, don't you? You know that so you came back for me and wanted me to look at you one more time.

Heart, don't you hear your heart and mine? We're a rhythm that's hanging on through the end of this waltz, a pantoum that plays in my head, your name that's sewn right next to the 'I' and 'love' and 'you' but that's another song for another night that I'm willing to wait for again if it means that you'll be there soon and alive and well and right where you belong in my room in our house.

And then you call me the sea and the rain and the wind so you can taste my song in your mouth, swallow me whole and take me, take me, take me again, anywhere away from these streets that you've walked and those beds that you've warmed. Dub me a muse again and I shall seize you by your wrist so I can feel you pulse beneath me, let me know that you're alive and waiting and worth the wait. You're warm around me, inside me, hot on my lips and skin, beautiful thing, strumming at my strings.

I'm walking alone and then you're a shadow cast from the light.

If I'm dreaming now, let this be the end, be all and end all, let me be yours and let yourself into me and seize me by my heartsongs and never let me escape from the swell of your voice against my mouth.

If this is a dream and you are but my own wish echoing off the walls of my mind, don't let me wake. And if you think I'm worth waiting for, then hold me safe in your grasp. If only I could make you mine, keep you here and safe from a world that grieves our joy, if this is love is supposed to hurt so help me, please.

Look at me again, love, and let me kiss your eyes to slumber so that when they open soon, I _will_ be the only consequence that keeps you alive.


	27. Overflow

**#27. Overflow**

she left me asleep

in her arms

by the copse in the wood

where roses grow and their thorns bleed red like her lips

_Persephone_

a kiss

on my throat;

bared white and full as the moon

glowing so furtive above the bars of her cage

_Persephone_

I left her first

under the overflowing rain

alone and bared

but tonight the clock strikes twelve and the spell will be

_broken_

- Persephone, Sky Rush (unfinished)

* * *

**N.B.:** Will finish the song. This entry is my last.

Thank you,

'Rang


	28. 28

Chapters 26 and 27 have also been uploaded (though I think 'adjuncts' are the correct definition). Still, an update. Finally. After ten months. Ouch.

Regardless, if you're still reading by this point, thanks for being patient. Another chapter and the epilogue will follow this one, though I can't guarantee quicker updates. I will say something for now: looking back, I'm glad I decided to pick up from where I left off.

Again, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy :)

* * *

**#28**

She woke up slow, limbs first. These trembled from a weight she didn't know where to place – not on her back, neither in her chest. Her lips felt flaky against the dank wood floor she must've been lain on for quite some time. Her skirt was wet with water, not sweat. A square of light patched her arm – the wrist in darkness, the hand aglow.

Caution now. The dream-memory was clearer than it'd been in a while. Walking out the door of her mother's house, the slate-blue Volvo, the rain, then the crash, then the smoke and the glass beads flying across her face, colored red with blood… hers, she stuttered on the thought before her eyes turned up and there was nothing but acid-white. Then black, the mellow daffodils and gardenia, and a duskier red-head and a blackcurrant bruise woven around his neck.

Oh.

But – she pulled herself to sit on the floor; the ache still tugged at her back – this was jumping to conclusions. Every story started at the beginning. She tucked herself in, knees to her chin, like she'd do as a kid and tried to piece things together.

It was raining in spring. The girl was dreaming about copper fields and high towers and ever afters when the boy gently shook her awake to tell her that there would be none of those for either of them. Yeah, he cared for her but love alone wouldn't be enough if either of them wanted to make it out without a mark. She was sure that she could've if he'd allowed her to have this one shot at it but this wasn't how he worked because he was broken out of place in a time where everything flowed on clockwork clichéd catechisms.

Someday you'll understand. They each told the other.

They waited for that day. Someday she would wake up to find happiness falling into place from the moments she had planned, instead of having to dig further and further into the grades on her papers or glances from smiling strangers. Someday he would figure out another way to forget what he shouldn't have known as a child.

Someday remained consistent. It walked on ahead, repeating itself in brisk footfalls until she eventually tried to keep up with the pace and he'd started to drown it under the louder hisses in his head. They walked away from each other and kept to their own travelling companions – she with a smiling sad-eyed blond and he with a woman who changed faces and names after each cycle of bulimic wastage. These were but temporary and they often wondered if they were going about in circles.

The girl tried to be a woman and the boy tried to reverse himself to beyond where he was something disposable. Nothingness didn't have much of a name; he would try to bring himself down to that point where purity was as blank as black. If it was dark enough, he wouldn't be able to see his own reflection. It was a clichéd rhetoric but blindness had an odd way of turning upon itself.

And so it did.

She rarely heard much from him but she would always see the shadows blown out by the cameras; the ironical twist in the smile she knew too well. Poor little famous boy. She didn't love that man and he didn't either. Look how he sabotaged him all the time while huffing hash and chortling Cobain quotes in the press. He had been alone enough to twist his head about in a blanket-rope and that's when she'd really figured it all out.

This was the jump-off point. She already had one foot in.

She had held him for the first time in a while and he'd wept like a child bent back into shape. Their bruises bloomed alight near the white-blank on his neck and the skin of her back. The pills she had once tried to take were almost the same white; they hadn't worked much because they were the wrong kind. That's what you got for ignoring the label. They were supposed to make you _feel_ better. You'd been thinking too much again, spending too much time on _those _books and listening to _that_ music.

Happiness had come to both of them like little sprinklings of snow falling outside their bedroom windows. These were but enough at the time when their holes were no bigger than thumb-nails and could be plugged white and pure. And if these were few and far in-between, the holes widened enough so they could swallow themselves. She worked harder, typing in annotations and foot-notes where they weren't needed but earning the extra credit for her trouble. He did just about everything – she'd read the papers – and seemed destined to shine bright as a comet heading to its end on a bare patch of earth.

And there was everything after.

Night, car, crash, glass, blood, sharp, pain… _sleep_…

Awakening to the smell of flowers thick in the void and his body limp in the grass. And she hadn't thought much for the rush in her veins at the sight of losing him _again_. The sound of her voice seemed to have given him that amount of comfort… enough for her to send him away with a kiss. He hadn't kissed back because… he wouldn't return. He had gone away and left her alone _again_.

He lived but he'd died long before this, like the white oleander she'd held in the field while her world stopped spinning.

But then he'd reappeared. Again. And again. _Again_. He'd kept her alive in his world when hers seemed so distant by then. His words lacked bite, unlike when he was singing, and yet they were tinged with a miserable candor she hadn't learned to recognize at school. Knife-sharp wit hadn't gotten him very far either, heartstrings unattached or otherwise. It hadn't worked a miracle for either of them. At times like these – with him mumbling in her arms, for whom she paid no heed to the marks left on her skin – she wondered if her head had cheated her as well as her heart.

This was all a dream. It had to be. A long, terrible, beautiful, awful, wonderful dream.

Just a dream.

"_Julia…"_

It was always painful, hearing that and not knowing where to turn, digging for the warmth beneath the cold. She could spin around like a Catherine wheel in a lonesome sky without anyone to see her ablaze in the dark. She hadn't lived to shine for anyone, that's what real stars were for.

"_Julia."_

Leaning against a wall that seemed to have sprouted from nowhere, she held her head in her hands and felt her heart drum. _Who, where and why_. Reason sought no rhyme in the place she was kept in. She could only let her mind wander so far while she pulled herself together with a kick to her spirit. She had to keep going on for something… someone's… someone… some… _one_… how did it come to this?

"_Julia, Julia, Julia…"_

It was growing in her: hotter, tingling up her back and tumbling into her mouth. She felt like she _had_ to say something too and stood with a shaky breath, finally. She could taste it warm and salty in her throat while her hand faltered across damp wood. The wall creaked but did not snap. The place under her curled knuckles did not give way but she did not break either. Everything was going to be fine; somethingsomeone told her that. She did not want to lose sight of this.

Her hand fluttered over where she felt it, his beneath hers. It was wet, warm.

The little bits crawled back to her, his lips had slid like, like, like a match striking skin and then a volley of sparks in her chest, belly, in her head, burning down the wall, the fence, sweet little memories. It was close, enough, close enough to leave a mark, here and there, here, there, it hurt, _it hurt_, it hurt _this_ good. She remembered… his name… the color of his grin… that sweetness of just laying there… chest upon chest upon laugh upon smile upon another kiss for good luck…

She could remember it all. That name on his tongue, the thuddering of those past few nights in those last couple months… she wanted that.

Julia. Yes, that felt right.

It was who she was to them.

Vigor renewed, she strengthened. There was a way to where she needed to be, somewhere, through the wall, over the fence she would go if that was what it would take. Gardenia white, rose pink, marigold red and vine green, yes, _yes_, she _knew_… she swallowed each scent and reanimated the life that bloomed. Heart, home, she should've known really, it had been _there_, right there, too close for her to see.

Julia laughed. It felt hot, it stung through the tips of her fingers.

The walls fell away.

* * *

It was sunny outside, the birds were singing and it would have been heartfully poetic to notice had anyone been awake at the moment. The light washed the walls a yolky-grey and the sheets shone like gold. It could have been beautiful had there been a pair of eyes open to take in the sight of a whole, new morning.

Hwoarang was close to waking again. He was choking on something in his throat that felt an awful lot like a cry. The blackness was staining itself skin-red the closer he got to the end of the dream. It had been…

Warm.

The sun was warm on his face. It was trying to rouse him with a touch, to make sure he was around in case she finally came around. Julia was still asleep, right beside him, and maybe he was only making this up as he went along. There was still time.

It touched the side of his face, pressing fingers to cheek. Warm.

They trembled as they stroked.

Through eyelashes, he peeped and caught the flash in open earth-brown eyes.

He was really awake now; he was trying to say it but his voice didn't quite seem enough to wrap its way round her name. She was blinking through the light, clutching the bed-sheet with one hand and the other weakly caressing his cheek. Her lips were flushed – their corners curling up in a way he had only seen years ago – and he didn't know where to begin…

So she spoke first.

"… Hello."

If this hadn't been realer, she would have laughed at the sight: him, lying right next to her, hair disheveled, eyes wide as pennies. She couldn't hold back the smile. It had been too long before she'd had a reason to let it out.

"I missed you."

He said nothing, but pulled her closer. When he did answer, she kissed back too.

"Julia," he whispered again and again. "Julia, Julia…"

"Hwo –,"

"I'd searched the whole night."

"But I've been right here… right here…"

Fearing she'd slip out just as easily once more, he slid himself carefully until she was nestled in his arms, safe as a child. She was still pale from her long dream; he returned the affection of her hands wandering over the planes of his skin with his lips to her mouth, chin, nose, beneath her jaw, down her neck, any way he could feed it back to her. He lingered over the pulse in her throat and she breathed in a shiver, speaking just above his ear.

"I've been waiting."

"So've I." There was no chance he would fall back to slumber. She was alive, and so was he. "I've realized that."

She could've asked how long it'd taken him to, except that it didn't matter now. They had 'now', they had 'tomorrow' and the rest to follow on from what this beginning lead into.

His hand had found its place on her heart. She reached in, pressing it down, closer.

"Welcome home."


End file.
